San Jorio Pass

The San Jorio Pass, located between the Lepontine Alps and the Lugano Prealps at an altitude of 2,012 metres above sea level, connects Garzeno in the Italian province of Como with Carena in the Swiss canton of Ticino. It thus offers a route between the shores of Lake Como and the valley of the Ticino river around Bellinzona.Although now only traversed by a track, the pass was of strategic importance in earlier times, as one of the roads that connected the lands of Lombardy and Sopraceneri. In the fifteenth century, the pass was exploited by the Visconti rulers of Milan in conflicts over the ownership of Bellinzona.