Chiesa di San Giorgio

This guide to the Chiesa di San Giorgio in Bellagio starts at the iron gate beneath its bell tower, which straddles the steps of Salita Genazzini like a soldier blocking a doorway, and asks why a bell tower would be built to stand directly over the only way into the walled town. It traces the tower back to around eleven hundred, when raiders forced lakeside towns to build for war, and follows how it later gained a small Romanesque church and an eleventh century fresco of the Madonna della Cintura. You'll hear about the September procession that still carries her statue down these same steps. Stand under the arch for a moment before you climb.