Tuesday, July 28
Day Plan
💻 RW
Crema — Call Me By Your Name countryside
🎬 Day 2: the countryside. The Perlman family villa and the film’s most famous scenes were shot in the villages just south of Crema. A short loop by car links them all — roughly 15–20 minutes between each.
🧀 Fresh on the blog: Gorgonzola: A Love Letter from Crema — written on Irma’s terrace this morning, starring a €3.84 tub of spoon Gorgonzola from the Famila down the road.
| Time | What |
|---|
| 09:00 | Villa Albergoni, Moscazzano — the Perlman house: Elio’s bedroom, garden, pool, outdoor lunches, the peach scene, the big conversations |
| 10:30 | Moscazzano village — the bar where Oliver plays cards; Marzia scenes |
| 11:30 | Pandino — Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, the “is it better to speak or to die?” arcade |
| 12:00 | Castello Visconteo, Pandino — the moated medieval castle in the same sequence |
| 13:00 | Lunch in Pandino, or back in Crema |
| Afternoon | Crema — shopping, coffee, revisit favourite spots; one final sunset walk in Piazza del Duomo |
🏡 Villa Albergoni is private property. The house (“Villa Perlman” on screen) is not open to visitors — admire it from the road outside, and keep quiet for the residents.
⭐ Villa Albergoni, Moscazzano
🎬 In the film: the Perlman family home — Elio’s bedroom, Mr. Perlman’s book-lined study, the garden and orchard, the pool, the outdoor lunches, the dancing and the peach scene. Guadagnino originally wanted to buy the villa; when he couldn’t, he filmed his movie in it instead, with set designer Violante Visconti di Modrone dressing every room.
🏛 History: built in the 1500s for the Milanese Vimercati family on the ruins of an earlier castle; inside are 16th-century murals by Aurelio Busso, a pupil of Raphael. Sold to new owners after the film (listed at €1.7M in 2018). Private property — view from outside.
📍 ⭐ Villa Albergoni, Moscazzano
Moscazzano village
🎬 In the film: the sleepy village bar where Oliver disappears at night to play cards with the locals — to Elio’s bafflement — plus several Marzia scenes.
🏛 History: a farming village of ~800 people that the Vimercati and Albergoni families dominated for centuries; the film needed almost no set dressing because so little has changed.
📍 Moscazzano village
⭐ Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, Pandino
🎬 In the film: Elio circles the WWI memorial and, under these arcades, tells Oliver the Heptaméron story — the knight who doesn’t know whether it is "better to speak or to die" — his roundabout confession. The film’s pivotal scene.
🏛 History: the porticoed piazza grew up at the gates of the Visconti castle; the memorial at its centre honours Pandino’s fallen of the Great War — in the film it becomes a monument to "the Battle of the Piave".
📍 ⭐ Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, Pandino
Castello Visconteo, Pandino
🎬 In the film: the castle frames the background of the Pandino sequence.
🏛 History: built 1355–61 by Bernabò Visconti, Lord of Milan, and his wife Beatrice Regina della Scala as a hunting residence — an elegant country palace rather than a fortress. Square plan, four corner towers, and a frescoed courtyard still carrying the Visconti serpent and della Scala ladder emblems. One of the best-preserved Visconti castles in Lombardy; the courtyard is usually free to wander.
📍 Castello Visconteo, Pandino
🎬 Filming-location checklist: Piazza del Duomo ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ · Cathedral arch ⭐⭐⭐⭐ · Historic streets ⭐⭐⭐⭐ · Porta Serio ⭐⭐⭐ · Villa Albergoni ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ · Moscazzano ⭐⭐⭐ · Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, Pandino ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ · Castello Visconteo ⭐⭐⭐ · Grotte di Catullo ⭐⭐⭐⭐
🚗 Optional excursion: the Grotte di Catullo at Sirmione (Lake Garda) — the Roman villa where the bronze statue is pulled from the lake — is ~1.5 h east. Rather than a same-day round trip, save it for the drive home tomorrow: Sirmione sits right on the A4, on the way to the Brenner.