PARCO DELLA ROCCA DI ARONA

In the summer of 1800 Stendhal watched as Arona's fortified castle was demolished and described it as follows: « an impregnable fortress encircled by five walls that render access impossible, with a tall slender tower topped by a waving flag. »
Today little remains of this monument and only the designs of a project mentioned in the historical archives of the Borromeo family are left to us of its surrounding gardens, which would have been located below the fortress just above the medieval village, between the Porta Principale (Principal Door) and the "Torre degli Innocenti". They were to have been planted on four long terraces connected by double flights of steps down the middle and surmounted by a Baroque temple carved in the limestone.