A Cursed Cable Car: Theft Strikes Monteviasco's Ropeway on the Eve of Its Month-Long Shutdown

For the tiny mountain hamlet of Monteviasco, reachable by road from nowhere, even a few weeks without its cable car is an anxious proposition. This week, the village got both a burglary and a scheduled shutdown on the very same day.

Sometime during the night between Sunday, Aug. 30, and Monday, Aug. 31, unknown intruders forced open a door at the Ponte di Piero station — the valley terminus of the funicular that connects Monteviasco to the outside world — and ransacked the interior searching for cash. They made off with just under €1,000, the till from the station, according to Luino Notizie, which cited the operator ATM (Azienda Trasporti Milanesi). No other damage from the break-in had been detailed as of Monday morning. Carabinieri from the Dumenza station responded to the scene and opened an investigation.

The timing could hardly have been worse. The theft was discovered on the same day, Monday, Aug. 31, that the cable car was already scheduled to close for roughly a month of planned maintenance — a five-year statutory overhaul mandated by Italy's transport ministry and national rail-and-cableway safety agency, ANSFISA. The line is due to remain shut until Sept. 29.

A Village Reachable Only by Cable Car or 1,400 Stone Steps

Monteviasco, a hamlet of roughly a few dozen year-round residents perched at about 1,650 metres in the Veddasca Valley near the Swiss border, is one of the more extreme cases of isolation in the Italian Alps. No road has ever reached the village; the only ways in are the cable car from Ponte di Piero — where the provincial road from Luino ends — or a centuries-old mule track built in 1813, comprising some 1,400 stone steps and roughly 400 metres of elevation gain.

The cable car itself dates to 1989, when it was built to shorten what had previously been an arduous climb. It has not, however, been a reliable presence. In November 2018, the line's longtime maintenance worker, Silvano Dellea, was killed when he became trapped and crushed by the station machinery. The tragedy triggered a judicial seizure of the installation and, in the years that followed, a painfully slow search for a new operator — during which residents and visitors had no option but the stone staircase. The closure stretched on for nearly seven years.

It wasn't until August 2025 that the cable car reopened, after Milan's transit authority, ATM, won a multi-resort concession — worth a reported €11 million and covering seven cable installations across the provinces of Como, Lecco and Varese — to take over operations in partnership with Imprese Turistiche Barziesi. The reopening was treated as local news of real significance: residents and the mayor at the time celebrated what one report described as the end of a seven-year ordeal, with the line initially running weekends and holidays before a planned expansion toward daily service.

A Rocky Return

That return to normal service has proven bumpier than hoped. In July 2026, less than a year after reopening, the line suffered a technical fault — a motor problem that struck on a Sunday afternoon and forced visitors at the top to walk back down via the mule track while ATM sourced a replacement part, keeping the cable car closed for several days.

Then, in mid-to-late August, a storm brought down several large trees along the mule track itself, severing power lines and damaging the fencing along the route. Local authorities shut the path to foot traffic on Saturday, Aug. 22, leaving the cable car as Monteviasco's only connection to the valley — a serious problem given that the funicular's own scheduled month-long maintenance shutdown was set to begin just over a week later, on Aug. 31. Mayor Nora Sahnane warned publicly that, absent swift repairs, the village risked being cut off entirely by both routes at once.

Curiglia con Monteviasco's civil protection volunteers moved quickly, clearing debris and provisionally reopening the mule track by the afternoon of Sunday, Aug. 23 — just over a week ahead of the cable car's planned closure. The path reopened on a temporary but safe basis, according to the mayor, with permanent repair work to the damaged section scheduled for the following week.

Isolation, Again, but Briefer This Time

The upshot is that, as of this week, Monteviasco is once more reachable only via the mule track, exactly as it was for nearly seven years after the 2018 accident — though this time the closure is a scheduled, monthlong maintenance window rather than an open-ended crisis, and the footpath, at least for now, is passable. ATM has said the cable car will resume public service on Sept. 29, once the mandated five-year inspection is complete.

Whether the theft at Ponte di Piero will complicate that timeline, or affect ticketing operations when service resumes, has not yet been addressed publicly by the operator. Carabinieri investigators are continuing to piece together the circumstances of the break-in.