By car along the Gardesana Occidentale up to the middle of Maderno; we park and by bicycle or on foot we enter in the Valley of Paper mills (Valle delle Cartiere). From the middle of the city we reach the valley, crossing the ancient bridge on the river, and we cover the old road which served to the full of raw materials trucks to reach the stores. The Valle delle Cartiere was, after which of Fabriano, the second manufacture of paper in Italy. Already active in the XIV century, the paper mills of Toscolano knew through the centuries an rapid development, due to their ability to satisfy the demand of the local printing-houses and of those of Venice. The great quantity of pure water transported from the river with its engine-power has permitted to develop a series of factories which from the middle of 1800 has produced high-quality papers, watermarked and perfect for the money-press. Also after the fall of the Venetian Republic the production was in the hands of expert artisans; the introduction of the automatic machine in some paper mills in northern Italy had as result the progressive decline of the paper mills of Garde, Vago e Maina Inferiore. Today the valley is one of the most representative cases of the Italian historical-industrial patrimony. The small building that was the gatehouse of the factory of Maina Inferiore, the last which stopped its activity in the Valley during the beginning of the sixties, contains the "Museum of the Paper". Museum has been divided in 4 sections: "The memory" (publications about the place and the production which was made here); "The memory" (numerous photos); "The manufacture" (accurate reconstruction of the environments, of the machines and of the work in an eighteenth-century paper mill); "The filigree" (initials and marks of paper mills of Lake Garda).