Piazza Garibaldi Webcam in Menaggio

Guiseppe Garibaldi was a military general who played a major role in the history of Italy. Not surprisingly, he has many plazas and streets named after him including this one in Menaggio, a town on the shores of Lake Como.

While Garibaldi wasn’t exactly a revolutionary, he was an inspirational force to many other well-known political leaders around the world and often to those who fought for independence in their countries. Garibaldi travelled frequently and on one of his travels in the mid-1800s, he visited Great Britain. That too turned out to be an inspirational trip, but not in the usual political way. 

The arrival of the general in South Shields, a town near Newcastle in the north of England, spurred the creation of – not a monument, town square or street in his honour – a biscuit. That’s something that even Julius Cesar didn’t manage to achieve so that’s a historical one-up for Garibaldi. They’re pretty tasty biscuits too, but will the clientele of the cafes in Piazza Garibaldi be dipping them in their espressos? The answer to that is- quite probably not.