GTL - Grande Traversata delle Langhe - Stage 16A: Bricco San Michele (Serravalle Langhe) - Feisoglio | Lake Maggiore, Lake Orta, Lake Mergozzo and Ossola Valleys

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Highlights and tour details

Variant of the GTL, this section allows to move from the Serravalle ridge to that of Feisoglio and Cravanzana. The route starts from Bricco San Michele, on the 9A variant that from Serravalle takes to Cerretto Langhe. Like any route of this kind, it alternates between down and uphill to the next ridge.

From the centre of Serrvalle Langhe continue on the provincial road towards Bossolasco, to the junction for the hamlet of Villa. Follow the ridge of the hill on the left which always goes left, until you go past a farm. Immediately after the next farmhouse you leave the crest to descend to the right on a dirt track. The small road, after skirting the retaining wall of the farmhouse, enters the wood and descends to a crossroads on the edge of the crest.

The road turns right, goes past a valley between hills and, after a few metres uphill, descends to the left. The dirt track, which maintains the retaining wall in stone in sections, with several bends reaches the Belbo valley floor. You cross a large meadow at the centre and, reaching the vegetation that borders the bank, turn right climbing back up to reach a ford. Cross the Belbo and climb the opposite bank on the road that, going right, skirts a hazelnut grove and climbs on the paved road a little before the ancient mill of Feisoglio. Climb the road among the farmhouses, pass a votive aedicule and, among extensive hazelnut groves, you reach the small church of San Rocco.

Descend right for a few metres and, now in view of Feisoglio, climb towards the village. Immediately after a small rest area cross the provincial road and, after a few metres to the left, take an old cobbled path that climbs right, not very evident, but which allows to reach Cascina Moretto quickly and, immediately after, return to the provincial road. Climb to the right and immediately turn left to enter among the houses, skirting the remains of the walls of the castle, now disappeared. Turning left again, you will soon reach the square.

Feisoglio looks onto Serravalle (Villa to be precise) and, with its lengthened shape, it is arranged parallel to the massive Parish church of San Lorenzo that dominates it, as the castle a little further south once did, of which only a few stones of the scarp wall remain.

The number of fortresses, castles, towers and churches lost between the 16^th and 17^th century in Piedmont is incredible, but even more so is those that have reached to our day, which gives an idea of how these hills must have looked to a merchant in the 1400s: a true representation of a Middle Age, elsewhere more often the stuff of legend or fairytales with hundreds of castles to embellish hills, villages and houses connected to them, like children to their mother’s skirts. Local lords who were always rivals, tolls and custom gates everywhere, monasteries and abbeys to bring some order, bad roads, more often mule tracks, almost non-existent bridges, countryside cultivated for what could be done between one war and a raid, with the scarce knowledge of time and a workforce of oxen and family.

Feisoglio was no exception to this, hit by wars and, above all, by the devastating plague of 1630, to which is owed the construction of the current monumental church by the survivors, built englobing a small “ecclesia castrii”, which was to be little more than a chapel and to which the ruined castle provided space and building material.

Attractions

Feisoglio : Parish Church of San Lorenzo . Serravalle Langhe : Church of San Michele Arcangelo .

Other information

Source: Unione Montana Alta Langa
Itinerary code: GTL
Recommended period: Apr - Nov
Access by public transport: Yes
Classification: Medium and low mountain provincial
Provinces crossed: Langhe Monferrato e Roero

Departure, arrival and municipalities crossed

Departure

Frazione Villa, Località Villa
Bricco San Michele
12050 Serravalle Langhe (CN)
Cuneo

see on map

Arrival

Via Veziani (SP339)
Feisoglio
12050 Feisoglio (CN)
Cuneo

see on map

Links

http://www.langheroero.it/

Lake Maggiore, Lake Orta, Lake Mergozzo and Ossola Valleys