Cànnero Riviera

A lovely town with a bloody history of 15th century piracy at the tiny island castles just offshore in the waters of Italy's Lago Maggiore (Lake Maggiore)

Cannero Riviera, seen from Oggiogo. (Photo by Markus Bernet)

Just before you hit Switzerland, south of the pretty little border town of Cannobio, with its rushing mountain stream, steep, crooked pebble lanes, and old plastered buildings, lies the last Mediterranean stretch of the Lake around Cànnero Riviera.

Cànnero Riviera

Cànnero Riviera.The name "Riviera" is apt, for the protected nature of this south-facing promontory blesses it with one of the northernmost, truly Mediterranean climes, allowing citrus trees to flourish and enough camellias for an annual festival.

The town's sweeping vistas down the lake, its steep medieval streets, and 18th-century houses grace it with a lovely air, but Cànnero is most noted for the scraps of islands just a 15-minute boat ride offshore that sprout glowering castles called the Malpaga that are built right down to the water level—castles with a gruesome history.

The Bloody Mazzardi Brothers

The Castelli di Cànnero, or Malpaga Castles.Used by the Borromeo family as a defensive line against the Swiss, but long-since abandoned, these little island castles were the most feared fortresses on the lake in the early 1400s when they were home to the Bloody Mazzardi Brothers.

Five sons of a local butcher (sometimes the name is spelled "Mazarditi") inhabited Cànnero's castle-islets as a base from which to pillage lakeside villages and waylay passing ships.

These lake pirates kept any women they captured chained up inside, but they tossed all the men over the walls or hung them from the ramparts.

By 1414, the locals were fed up. The town of Cànnero sent 500 soldiers to attack the castle. While four of the brothers managed to escape, the fifth was drowned.

The local boatmen (tel. +39-0323-788-112, www.taxibanano.it) who take visitors for a spin around these eerie ruins swear—and, unlike most canned tour guide commentary, they look as if they mean it—that the fifth brother's ghost still haunts the ruins on stormy nights.

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