Castello di Masnago is a small castle with a useful second life as Varese's civic museum of modern and contemporary art. Its best surprise is that the building is not just a container: medieval and Renaissance rooms, including frescoed halls, give the collection a more textured setting than a neutral gallery would.
The castle stands in Parco Mantegazza, so the visit can be as much about a green pause as about art. It works well after the villas and gardens closer to the centre, especially if you want a quieter corner of Varese with a little elevation and a sense of the old villages that were absorbed into the modern city.