Lecco

This guide to Lecco follows Riccardo Cassin, who stepped off a train here in 1926 at seventeen, bound for a steel-plant job, until he looked up at the twin peaks above the rooftops and started climbing them on his days off. You'll hear how he taught himself technique that didn't yet exist, took it to the Dolomites and beyond, and how a club of young local climbers formed in 1946 with the open goal of finally beating him. It follows the Ragni di Lecco, the Spiders in their red sweaters, from that rivalry into something else entirely. Look up at the same summits Cassin once did, from the streets below.