Colleoni arcades

San Pellegrino Terme, devoted to vacationing since the 19th century, soon felt the need to provide itself with a space dedicated to strolling and resting along the Brembo. As early as the mid-1800s, the municipality provided for the planting of an avenue of horse chestnuts, creating a shady path that connected the bridges and skirted the river: an elegant and pleasant promenade, a rare privilege in the Brembana Valley and a clear sign of its tourist identity.
The avenue, inaugurated in 1852, represented one of the first public interventions of urban decorum, aimed at offering vacationers a place to meet and quiet down. Not surprisingly, a few years later, the tourist tax was introduced, which was also useful in dealing with the repeated damage caused by the 19th-century floods.
It would be necessary to wait until the 1930s for the final transformation of the front along the Brembo: the old shacks and sawmill were replaced by an elegant arcade with stores and cafes, designed by Lorenzo Colleoni, whose family crest is still recognizable in the decoration of the arches. From the same period are the concrete balustrades facing the river, adorned with cast-iron candelabras with luminous bowls, typical elements of the aesthetic language of the time.
Completing the urban setting are the Excelsior, a large luxury hotel now under renovation, and the Town Hall, which takes on its present appearance thanks to two successive restorations: the first in the early 20th century by architect Squadrelli (the same as the Grand Hotel and Casino), and the second in the 1930s by architect Angelini.
Even today, the tree-lined avenue remains one of the town's most beloved places: a meeting space, a slow stroll and a living memory of a season when San Pellegrino Terme imagined itself the capital of Alpine elegance.