This famous tourist place, health resort and commercial and industrial centre is situated at the south end of the Lecco branch of Lake Como, at the mouth of the River Adda and 30 km from the town of Como. The town lies on a plain at the mouth of the Valsassina valley and is dominated to the north by Mount San Martino and to the east by Mount Resegone.

The eighteenth century Villa Manzoni in Via Amendola houses documents and works written by Alessandro Manzoni, author of I Promessi Sposi.

Manzoni lived here for a long time and set his famous novel in the Lecco area. The eighteenth century Palazzo Belgioioso, in Corso Matteotti, contains the Civic Museum with archaeological and natural history sections, a picture gallery and a section on fishing. The Risorgimento and Resistance Museum is in a fifteenth century tower in Via XX Settembre.