For those pioneering travellers, gentle, sunlit Chiavenna marked their arrival in Italy, having crossed the Splügen Pass, one of the earliest transalpine routes connecting northern Europe to the south. Today, few tourists bother with Chiavenna, heading instead to the better-known Como that lies 60 miles (100km) to the south. They are missing a treat.
Intrigued by the praise once heaped upon this mysterious town, with a picture-perfect location at the foot of the snow-flecked Alps, I decided to spend a week here with my husband. Surrounded by thick chestnut woods and bisected by the crystal-clear River Mera, Valchiavenna (the town’s valley) holds numerous surprises too, from the area’s crotti (natural caves), to a B&B in the ornate villa once inhabited by the great 18th-century painter Angelica Kauffman. It also has dozens of magnificent hiking and cycling trails through a spectacular landscape of waterfalls, glacially sculpted rocks, mossy woodlands, ancient mule tracks and abandoned villages. With barely a tourist in sight.