Valle Vigezzo

Valle Vigezzo, also called the Vigezzo Valley, lies in the Lepontine Alps of northwestern Italy on the border with the Swiss canton of Ticino, forming the eastern branch of the Ossola valley. It is nicknamed the Valle dei Pittori, or Valley of the Painters, for a long tradition of local artists including Giuseppe Mattia Borgnis and Carlo Fornara, and it was also home to chimney sweeps who carried their trade across Europe and to Giovanni Maria Farina, who developed Eau de Cologne from the valley's flowers and plant oils. The valley is unusually drained by two rivers rather than one, the Melezzo Occidentale flowing toward the Toce and the Melezzo Orientale draining toward Switzerland and Lake Maggiore through the Swiss section known as Centovalli. Its highest points are Pizzo La Scheggia at 2,466 meters and Pioda di Crana at 2,430 meters, and its floor holds the villages of Druogno, Santa Maria Maggiore, Malesco and Re.