Crespi d'Adda is a whole company town, built from 1878 by the Crespi family of cotton manufacturers on a bend of the Adda river where the water could turn their turbines. Around the mill they laid out rows of neat houses with gardens for the workers, larger villas for the managers, a school, a church that copies the Renaissance church of Santa Maria di Piazza in Busto Arsizio, a washhouse, a hospital, and, on a slight rise at the end of the main street, a cemetery with a strange, almost Mayan-looking mausoleum for the family. It was a paternalistic utopia in which the company looked after its workers from cradle to grave, and UNESCO listed it in 1995 as one of the best-preserved examples of its kind in Europe.
The mill closed in 2003, but the village is still lived in, and the houses with their little gardens, the straight avenues and the giant chimney give the place a quiet, orderly feel that is quite unlike the towns around it. You can walk the whole thing in an hour.
The Adda is a lovely river, deep green and fast here, flowing between wooded banks with old canals and towpaths running alongside. Leonardo da Vinci spent time in this valley and studied its rapids; some believe the landscapes in his paintings echo its scenery, and the ferry crossing at Imbersago upstream is said to follow his design. The towpath along the Martesana canal and the river is a favourite cycle route, but not for bikes with engines.
As a ride start or finish, Crespi is close to the motorway network around Bergamo and Milan, and the roads out are suburban at first, with traffic, roundabouts and industry. Head north, though, and within half an hour you are into the foothills, climbing towards Lecco and the lakes or into the valleys above Bergamo. Brembate, Canonica d'Adda and Vaprio d'Adda all have fuel stations, bars and pastry shops, so you will not go short of an espresso. Bergamo's upper town, Città Alta, inside its Venetian walls, is a perfect evening destination.