Spaces among chapels are rarely the result of a casual choise: these are strategically set to represent chronological intervals among religious and historical facts told in the Sacred Mount; furthermore these allow pilgrims, notwithstanding walking and breathing efforts for the slopes, to pray for a particular devotion in the foreseen way, for example telling the Saint Rosary.
On Varese’s Sacred Mount itinerary the rythm of the narration is also materially marked by the presence of important symbolic elements such as archs, statues and fountains, which trace the telling’s passage from one sacred issue to the next.

The access to the space which houses the chapels, above all when Sacred Mounts are enclosed with walls, is often marked by stone portals which give to the place the typical atmosphere of the protected hermitage, where the profane space contrasts with the holy one (sometimes the last one looks like a real garden, with elaborated and charming shapes, as in Orta).

In some parts of the mountain path, pilgrims can admire the surrounding landscape or they can rest and relax sitting on natural stone chairs, under porticos and next to fountains; in other parts indeed, various elements beloging to the religious complexe seem to invite pilgrims not to distract themselves from religious practices: a clearly defined itinerary, a particular vegetation layout and even a drawing representing a hand painted on chapels’ walls showing the right telling direction, are useful means to address pilgrims looks and minds towards the culminating point of the holy route.

In all Sacred Mounts the final point is marked by a special building, always characterized by a particular architectural complexity or artistic contents and which represents a sort of apotheosis of vertex, that is a place in which spiritual, emotional and aesthetical experiences reach their highest level of completeness. The destination is therefore characterized by elements like the chapels “of Heaven”, the scenes of Ascension and Assumption, the Triumph of the Saints’ community or by the most elaborated churches’ shapes, which make really fascinating and complete the consciousness of being come to the ascesis path’s end.