The valley follows the Oglio river north from Lake lseo. Boario Terme is an important spa town (liver and gastric complaints) set in attractive parkland with a lake. Nearby, the sports centre offers bowling, minigolf, tennis and an Olympic swimming-pool. Entertainment includes plenty of shops and cafés, a nightclub, fishing.

At Montecchio a picturesque single-arched bridge of 1686 spans the Oglio. Darfo has old streets and buildings with arches and porches. The 11thC castle of the Federici in Gor-zone is still inhabited. Erbanno boasts a medieval square tower built to defend the town, and the 15thC Palazzo Federici.

Bienno in the Valle dei Magli was once a great iron working centre thanks to local mines and powerful mountain torrents supplying energy. A renovated blacksmith’s shop houses the ethnographical iron museum. An old water-driven mill is also a museum, wheels still turning.

Capodiponte has the highest concentration of the rock inscriptions of which more than 150,000 have been found throughout the valley. These incised stones, scattered over the flanks of the mountains, date from the 6,000-year period between the Neolithic and Iron Ages. They are also found at Malengo and other towns.