The Ponte del Passo crosses the river Mera in the Pian di Spagna, between Sorico and Gera Lario, on state road 340 dir: built between 1935 and 1938 with a structure designed for tanks, it is today an obligatory crossing of the northern Lario and the point where the lakeside cycle and walking path starts.
History
The name recalls a water “passo” (crossing). For much of the 19th century the river crossed here was the Adda, not the Mera: its course was later shifted towards Colico. There were no bridges, only a ferry service, first with simple boats and then with a “flying port”. Not far away stood the tower of Olonio, a stronghold of Roman origin where river traffic was watched and tolls were levied on goods bound for or coming from the Valchiavenna and the Valtellina: in 1167 Frederick Barbarossa gave it to the bishop of Como, in 1520 a change in the Adda’s bed put it in contact with the current, and in 1531, following an agreement between the Grisons and the Milanese duchy, it was abandoned and dismantled. Only a few cellars remain, used as cellars by some houses in the Ponte del Passo locality (Mondi Medievali). Later the Pian di Spagna was watched over by the Spanish forts, including the Forte di Fuentes.
In the second half of the 19th century a first bridge on steel sleepers, a little further north, replaced the ferry: only its abutments remain on the two banks. The present bridge was built between 1935 and the summer of 1938, when it was inaugurated with a solemn ceremony (QuiComo). It has a reinforced concrete structure, with three pairs of arches with a cycloid profile on two masonry piers resting in the river; the deck is hung from the arches with ties. It was designed with military use in mind, sized for a line of tanks that never passed, and has carried ever more traffic for over eighty years. Wikipedia calls it a “thrust-free arch” bridge and the twin of the one over the Adda at Brivio.
In spring 1945 the bridge ideally marked the boundary of action of the 52nd Garibaldi Brigade “Luigi Clerici” and was watched until the end by the Republican National Guard of the Frontier, so that it would not be mined. According to QuiComo the last search of the German column of Captain Hans Fallmeyer took place there, after Mussolini had been arrested at Dongo. Since 2019 a walkway 100 metres by 2, laid in three modules on the piers of the bridge, closes the gap in the cycle and pedestrian path that runs from Sorico towards Gera Lario, Vercana and Domaso.
What to see
The bridge is best seen on foot or by bike from the cycle path. Beyond the bridge, towards Chiavenna, opens the Pian di Spagna, the alluvial plain of the Adda and a nature reserve, with a flat loop that starts from the car park a little after the bridge (a 2013 hiking diary describes it in about four and a quarter hours, all on the flat). The path along the lake goes instead towards Gera Lario and Domaso, with the little harbour and the lighthouse of Gera Lario.
Practical information
- It is a road bridge, and according to Wikipedia it is today the only road link in the north between the two shores, the Como side and the Lecco side, of the lake.
- A 2013 hiking diary mentions a car park with a rest area just past the bridge: coming from Sorico, after the bridge you turn left towards Chiavenna and stop after a hundred metres, on the left.
- The Forte di Fuentes, at Colico, controlled the same crossings.