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Porto Valtravaglia

Cities and towns in LombardyMunicipalities of the Province of Varese
Map of comune of Porto Valtravaglia (province of Varese, region Lombardy, Italy)
Map of comune of Porto Valtravaglia (province of Varese, region Lombardy, Italy)

Porto Valtravaglia is a comune (municipality) of c. 2,400 inhabitants in the Province of Varese in the Italian region Lombardy, located about 70 kilometres (43 mi) northwest of Milan and about 20 kilometres (12 mi) northwest of Varese. Porto Valtravaglia borders the following municipalities: Brezzo di Bedero, Brissago-Valtravaglia, Casalzuigno, Castelveccana, Duno, Ghiffa and Oggebbio. Dario Fo, Nobel Prize in literature of 1997, spent his childhood and adolescence here, and the little village played a central role in the development of his artistic specificity and production. In fact, it was the mix of people from different countries, working at the local, renowned blown glass factory and speaking an array of languages, that inspired the creation by Fo of the Grammelot, an original new idiom mixing a number of regional dialects. Listening to the stories told by the inhabitants of the village, typically fishermen, peasants, glass blowers and smugglers, then, introduced and trained him to the art of storytelling, of which he was a great representative. Eventually, it was again the local population, often busy with nightly jobs, who inspired one of his novels, "Il paese dei Mezarat" (the village of the bats).

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Porto Valtravaglia (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Porto Valtravaglia
Via Ticinallo, Comunità Montana Valli del Verbano

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Latitude Longitude
N 45.966666666667 ° E 8.7 °
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Via Ticinallo

Via Ticinallo
Comunità Montana Valli del Verbano
Lombardy, Italy
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Map of comune of Porto Valtravaglia (province of Varese, region Lombardy, Italy)
Map of comune of Porto Valtravaglia (province of Varese, region Lombardy, Italy)
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Margorabbia
Margorabbia

The Margorabbia is the river (intermittent stream) of Valtravaglia, a valley in the province of Varese, Lombardy, Italy. It is a tributary of the Tresa which it joins a few hundred metres upstream of Lake Maggiore. The source is near Valganna. After forming a number of small lakes, including Lago di Ganna and Lago di Ghirla, its course continues through the Prealps of Varese until near Cunardo it is swallowed up by a system of caves: Pont Niv, Antro dei Morti, Grotte di Villa Radaelli and Grotte del Traforo. It emerges from underground near Ferrera di Varese and runs through the Valtravaglia crossing the valley’s communes of Grantola, Mesenzana and Germignaga. A cycle path has recently been constructed along this part of the river. The torrent has many affluents. The most important left side tributaries are the Rancina, the Boesio and the Gesone; from the right it receives the waters of the Boggione, the Lisascora and the Grantorella. Thanks to the wet and karstic areas it traverses, the Margorabbia has a generally high discharge and dries up far less frequently than many torrents. These feature made it a useful source of power for the mills and factories which grew up along its banks. The power hammers of Ghirla in the commune of Valganna are particularly well known. The river is subject to sudden and dramatic increases in its flow, becoming truly ‘torrential’. Very often bridges have been destroyed, or it has broken its banks and caused severe flooding in the Valtraviglia. Today many artificial embankments have been constructed along the Margorabbia for the purposes of flood protection.