Tourists come to Crespi d’Adda for different reasons: the researchers can find more information about the paternalistic behaviour and about what they read in books, because this company town is a real "Jewel of the industrial archaeology". It was built, between 19th and 20th century by Enlightened industrialists, the Crespi family, in order to lodge the workers. Later it was provided with several services and meeting places. So it can be considered as a self-sufficient happy island, whose life standard was higher than in the surrounding region.
This settlement, which is a gem of a village built in the Isola Bergamasca near Bergamo (a region delimited by the rivers Adda and Brembo and the Prealps, this area is an “island” in Lombardy), is really interesting: students can understand facts that usually are only maps and illustrations in scholastic books, curious people can learn having a walk in a lived-in village which is plunged into the nature, although the town is really close to the factory. If you have enough time, you can walk up to the river Adda and enjoy the beautiful panorama (which certainly enthralled Leonardo) and you can have a view of the three important water courses, which have affected the history of this area: the outstanding but unused derivation channel that fed the hydroelectric factory power station, the river Adda and the Naviglio Martesana, an artificial channel that has flown for over five centuries to Milan.
Our trips usually are three-hour-long, but they could be easily modified on the basis of trippers’ wishes. During our outing we usually have a pleasant walk in the village and our appointees, all provided with a meaningful knowledge of both the company town and the outskirts, will offer you detailed historical information about the village and also about the organization and the life in Crespi d’Adda.
Usually our trip begins from the road upper the town in order to offer you an attractive view of the settlement, then we go down into the village and, after a standstill in the square near the church (this building is ruled by schedules in order not to disturb religious celebrations), we start going deeply into the knowledge of the town: the factory entrance, the castle, the workers’ houses, the clerk and department heads’ houses, the Liberty managers’ villas. Final standstill will be the cemetery, a really attractive place (its particular feature is perhaps due to the stately Crespi mausoleum, which is well visible in the middle of the Anglo-Saxon-plant cemetery).
