Clusone is a village of around 8,000 residents at 648 metres above sea level, set on a sunny plateau in the Valseriana, 35 minutes from Bergamo. If you’re wondering what to see in Clusone, the short answer is: a 1583 clock that tracks the phases of the moon with a single hand, a 1484 fresco that is the only one in Europe to bring together three medieval themes of death, a free museum with tower-clock mechanisms dating back to the 14th century, and a village full of frescoes that earned it the nickname “the painted town”. In 2023 Clusone was included among the Borghi più Belli d’Italia (Italy’s Most Beautiful Villages), and since 2008 it has held the Touring Club Italiano’s Orange Flag.
But Clusone isn’t just a historic centre. Around the village lie the Pineta pine forest with 22 km of trails, Monte Crosio with a route dedicated to the Divine Comedy, the San Lucio refuge with its sculptures in the woods, and the Orobie mountains rising towards the Presolana. Lake Iseo is 25 minutes away. You could stay in the Valseriana for days without running out of things to do. This guide takes you through the village and then out towards the trails and surroundings, with times, distances and practical information to help plan your visit.
Piazza dell’Orologio and the Fanzago Planetary Clock
The heart of Clusone is Piazza dell’Orologio (Clock Square), and the reason for the name stands on the tower of the Palazzo Comunale, where in 1583 Pietro Fanzago installed his Planetary Clock. It’s not a decorative clock: with a single hand and a still-original counterweight mechanism, it marks the hours, months, days, the length of day and night, the zodiac signs, the phases of the moon and the length of the lunar cycle. The hand turns anticlockwise. To find something comparable you’d have to go to Prague.
The square itself is the natural starting point for visiting the village. From here you climb towards the Basilica and the Oratorio dei Disciplini, enter the alleys of the historic centre and reach the MAT Museo Arte Tempo. In summer the square hosts markets and concerts; in winter, video-mapping on the clock tower turns the façade into a story told in light. If it’s your first time in Clusone, stop in the square and look around: the frescoed buildings surrounding it already tell half the story of the village.
The Dance of Death and the Oratorio dei Disciplini
Climbing from the square towards the Basilica, the first thing you see is the fresco on the outer façade of the Oratorio dei Disciplini. This is the Danza Macabra of Clusone (Dance of Death), painted in 1484 by Giacomo Borlone de Buschis, and it’s no ordinary fresco: it’s the only one in Europe to bring together three medieval themes of death on the same wall. At the top, the Triumph of Death: death dominating over all. In the middle, the Dance of Death itself, with skeletons and people of every social rank dancing together, from the pope to the peasant, because in the face of death, rank doesn’t matter. At the bottom, the Meeting between the living and the dead.
The fresco is visible from the outside at any hour, free of charge. Take your time looking at it, moving closer to read the details: the characters’ expressions, the clothes indicating social status, the skeletons playing musical instruments. Inside the Oratorio there are 42 frescoed panels depicting the life of Jesus. The contrast between the outside, death, the inevitable, and the inside, sacred life, is the whole point of the building.
The Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta
Next to the Oratorio, the Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta e San Giovanni Battista dominates the top of the village with a dramatic pincer staircase and a side portico. Inside: sculptures by Andrea Fantoni (the most celebrated dynasty of sculptors and woodcarvers in the Bergamo area), canvases by local artists and a historic organ. The Basilica is active and functioning, a place of worship before it is an attraction: it welcomes visitors with the same silence it offers the faithful.
From the Basilica’s staircase, the view opens onto the Clusone plateau, with Monte Fogarolo, La Montagnina and Pizzo Formico in the background. At sunset the light hits the façades differently depending on the season, and photographers know it well.
MAT, Museo Arte Tempo
The MAT Museo Arte Tempo is housed in Palazzo Marinoni Barca, a seventeenth-century residence with frescoed halls and a garden where three centuries-old sequoias grow, around 25 metres tall with a circumference of 6 metres each. Admission to the museum is free, and few people expect that.
Inside there are two souls. The first is the art collection: paintings, sculptures and repoussé work by artists from Bergamo. Carpinoni, Cifrondi, Nazzari, Querena, Trussardi Volpi, as well as a work by Giacomo Manzù, who lived in Clusone during the Second World War. The second is the Gorla Collection: tower-clock mechanisms from the 14th to the 20th century, entrusted to Clusone by the Province of Bergamo. It’s the place to understand how the Fanzago Clock really works: the mechanisms on display tell centuries of the engineering of time. Opening hours: Friday 3:30-6:30pm, Saturday and Sunday 10am-12pm and 3:30-6:30pm.
The painted village: churches and frescoes in the historic centre
Clusone is called “the painted town”, and walking through the centre you understand why. The frescoes aren’t only in the Oratorio and the Basilica: they’re found on building façades, doorways, boundary walls. The village is built on four successive levels, with narrow alleys, fifteenth-century porticoes, stone stairways, hidden courtyards and fountains. Every corner offers something, often without a sign, without a ticket, without a crowd.
Among the sights that not everyone finds: the Chiesa del Paradiso, with interior frescoes telling the building’s history; the Chiesa di Sant’Anna (1487), part of the old convent; the Chiesa di San Defendente with its painting cycles. And then there are the craft workshops, the cafés under the porticoes, the alleys where the light filters differently depending on the hour. If you like, you can also stop at the Bottega del Riutilizzo “Di mano in mano” on Via Brasi, run by Caritas: antique and vintage furniture displayed in an old convent, with even the little church turned into storage. A place you wouldn’t expect.
The Pineta and the Adventure Park
Just outside the built-up area, the Pineta di Clusone is a high-value forest with Scots pines, Norway spruce and broadleaf trees. Inside it there are over 22 km of walking trails, plus a roller-ski circuit and the Valseriana cycle-pedestrian path. It’s where the people of Clusone go to walk, run and take their children, and where visitors to the village can extend their day with a dip into nature just five minutes from the centre.
For families: the Adventure Park in the Pineta has routes for every age, with helmet, harness and an unlimited-round ticket. Children climb trees and slide through the branches while adults sit in the shade. In summer the pine forest is one of the few places in the Valseriana where the heat doesn’t reach: the tree cover and altitude do their job.
Monte Crosio: the Divine Comedy trail
The Crosio hill can be reached in around 40 minutes on foot from the village, with a gentle climb and a trail suitable for everyone. Along the way, a series of signs tells the story of the Purgatorio canticle of the Divine Comedy: the mountain that Dante climbs with fear, drawn by the goal. At the top: a sixteenth-century chapel dedicated to the Holy Trinity and a view over Clusone that rewards the climb.
The Crosio is the village’s most accessible viewpoint: the spot from which you see the whole plateau, the Orobie behind you and the Valseriana opening up ahead. At sunset, if the light is right, the village really does look painted.
Monte Cimiero and the panoramic trails
For those with sturdier legs, Monte Cimiero rises to 967 metres. The trail passes the Fontanino del Papà, one of Clusone’s two historic springs, documented since 1520, and reaches a large iron cross from which the view stretches to Monte Alben and Monte Grem, taking in the whole Valseriana. From here you can continue towards Cima Blum and then towards the Presolana, the “queen mountain” of the area.
The other spring, the Fontanino della Mamma, is reached with a shorter walk from the centre. The structure around it dates back to the Belle Époque, when Clusone was already a holiday destination for people from Bergamo: slow tourism, before tourism became an industry.
San Lucio and the sculptures in the woods
South of Clusone, a paved road leads to the Rifugio di San Lucio, at 1,027 metres above sea level: a restaurant with a panoramic terrace over the whole valley, tucked away in the woods. But the reason to come all this way isn’t just the view.
In the woods around the refuge, the artist Giannino Trussardi has installed, over the years, more than 200 sculptures made from fallen tree branches. Squirrels, bears, owls, monsters, ghosts, a giant ant and a treehouse, all built from wood the forest provides. Children go wild looking for them; adults read the aphorisms carved into the wooden boards. Trussardi has also turned the Roccolo Zuccone, a small tower-house once used for bird-watching, into a panoramic balcony. A place that doesn’t appear in standard tourist guides and that makes Clusone different from any other village in the province.
The Biscotto di Clusone and Valseriana cuisine
No visit to Clusone is complete without the Biscotto. Invented in 1920 and produced by Pasticceria Trussardi (now run by young Martina Oprandi), the Biscotto di Clusone is made with almonds and chocolate, firm, crumbly, with a flavour unlike any other biscuit from the Bergamo area. You’ll find it in several pastry shops around the village and in some local produce stores.
Valseriana cuisine deserves a closer look of its own. Restaurants in and around the village serve casoncelli (Bergamo-style ravioli), polenta taragna with alpine cheeses, game, seasonal mushrooms and traditional desserts. At the Beides Restaurant at Collina Luxury Relais, the cooking is km0, with producers from the Valseriana within 100 km: the menu changes with the seasons, and every dish tells the story of the land its ingredients come from. The Americano Bar at the same relais, in the warmer months, offers cocktails on the panoramic terrace with views of the Orobie: a different kind of aperitivo from those in the centre.
Giuseppe Verdi and Clara Maffei: Clusone in history
Clusone’s history is intertwined with that of Italy. Giuseppe Verdi stayed here and, according to local tradition, composed Attila in the drawing room of Countess Clara Maffei. Maffei herself, a heroine of the Risorgimento and host of one of the most important cultural salons of the nineteenth century, loved Clusone all her life. The MAT Museo Arte Tempo has dedicated monographic exhibitions to her, and the village’s main street bears her name.
This adds depth to the visit. Clusone isn’t a village that invented a tourist identity for itself: it has a cultural history that precedes any travel guide.
The surroundings: what to see near Clusone
Clusone is a starting point, not a destination in itself. The Valseriana has villages, trails and places that deserve days of their own, and Clusone’s location makes it easy to reach them all.
Gromo, 15 minutes from Clusone, is another of the Borghi più Belli d’Italia. A medieval village with stone tower-houses, once a leading centre of edged-weapon production in Europe. Tiny, quiet, perfect for a couple of hours combined with a visit to Clusone.
Passo della Presolana, 20 minutes from Clusone, links the Valseriana to Lake Iseo. The Presolana is the queen mountain of the Bergamo area: ski slopes in winter, panoramic trails with views over the Orobie and the plain in summer.
Lake Iseo, 25 minutes from Clusone via the Presolana pass. Lovere (a Borghi più Belli d’Italia village) sits on the northern shore, Sarnico on the Bergamo shore, and Monte Isola in between: the largest lake island in southern Europe, reachable by boat. A day at the lake combines naturally with a base in Clusone.
Val Vertova, 20 minutes away, a flat mule track along a stream with waterfalls and natural pools. You can swim there in summer. Suitable for families.
Practical information for visiting Clusone
| Info | Detail |
|---|---|
| Altitude | 648 m above sea level |
| Population | ~8,000 |
| Recognitions | Borghi più Belli d’Italia (2023), TCI Orange Flag (2008), town status (1801) |
| From Bergamo | 35-40 min by car (SS671) · Bus line S, Arriva |
| From Milan | ~1h30 by car (A4 + SS671) |
| Parking | Via Dante Alighieri (near the cinema) or Via G. Verdi, both a few minutes from the centre |
| Info point | Visit Clusone, 0346.21113, visitclusone.it |
| MAT Museum | Free admission · Fri 3:30-6:30pm · Sat-Sun 10am-12pm / 3:30-6:30pm |
| Dance of Death | Visible from outside at any time, no ticket needed |
| Where to stay | Collina Luxury Relais (5-star, hills of Clusone), the only 5-star hotel in the Valseriana |
| Where to eat | Beides Restaurant (km0 Valseriana cuisine) + restaurants in the village |
| Lake Iseo | 25 min via the Presolana pass |
Frequently asked questions about Clusone
How much time do you need to visit Clusone?
The historic centre’s attractions, the Fanzago Clock, the Dance of Death, the Basilica, the MAT Museo Arte Tempo, can be visited on foot in 2-3 hours, since they’re concentrated in the old village. For a complete experience with the Pineta, Monte Crosio and lunch at a traditional restaurant, allow a full day. Anyone wanting to add San Lucio, Monte Cimiero or a trip to Lake Iseo can plan a weekend, staying overnight at Collina Luxury Relais in the hills above the village.
Where is the Dance of Death of Clusone?
On the outer façade of the Oratorio dei Disciplini, next to the Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta, in the upper part of the village. It dates from 1484, attributed to Giacomo Borlone de Buschis, and is the only fresco in Europe to bring together the three medieval themes of Death: the Triumph, the Dance of Death and the Meeting of the living and the dead. Visible from the outside at any time, free of charge.
How do you get to Clusone from Bergamo and Milan?
From Bergamo: 35-40 minutes by car along the SS671 Valseriana road, or the Arriva line S bus with a stop in Piazzale IV Novembre. From Milan: around 1 hour 30 minutes, the A4 to the Bergamo/Orio al Serio exit, then the SS671 towards the Valseriana. The nearest railway station is Bergamo. Those arriving from Lovere (Lake Iseo) can use the C40e line.
What can you do in Clusone with children?
The Adventure Park in the Pineta has routes for every age with an unlimited-round ticket. The Monte Crosio trail (40 min) tells the story of the Purgatorio of the Divine Comedy through signs along the way. The MAT Museum has free admission and creative workshops. The San Lucio woods hide more than 200 wooden sculptures by the artist Giannino Trussardi: squirrels, owls, a treehouse, a natural treasure hunt. For a lunch that suits everyone, restaurants in the centre serve Bergamo cuisine with dishes for children.
Where can you stay in Clusone?
Collina Luxury Relais is the only 5-star property in the Valseriana, in the hills above Clusone: chalets with private jacuzzi and Orobie views, My Purity SPA with a pool at 37°C, and the km0 Beides Restaurant. It’s just a few minutes from the historic centre and is the starting point for excursions towards the Presolana, Lake Iseo and the whole Valseriana. For those looking for weekend packages with spa and dinner, the offers combine stay, wellness and dining in a single package.
Clusone: a village worth the trip
Clusone isn’t a postcard village that’s exhausted in a single photo. It’s a place with layers, medieval art, Renaissance engineering, pre-Alpine nature, living food traditions, that reveal themselves gradually, on foot, at a slow pace. The Valseriana has the advantage of being less known and less expensive than other Lombard valleys, but the quality of what there is to see in Clusone is comparable to far more celebrated villages.
If you’re looking for a place to combine culture, nature and good food in the province of Bergamo, without the crowds of the big lakes and without the distance of the Valtellina, Clusone is the right starting point. And Collina Luxury Relais, up in its hills, is the place to return to in the evening after a day in the village: a wellness journey in the panoramic spa, dinner with produce from the valley at Beides, and a private jacuzzi on your chalet with the Orobie in front of you.
Plan your stay in Clusone: get in touch
Guide updated March 2026. Opening hours for the MAT Museum and other attractions may vary seasonally: check visitclusone.it and museoartetempo.it before your visit. This guide was written by the Collina Magazine editorial team based on publicly available information and direct knowledge of the area.
