The best MTB trails around San Cristoforo

Road closed from both sides

The castle built on a 13th century fortification - is accessed via a steep climb starting from the small square where the ancient municipal building with loggia stood. Enfeoffed to the Doria family between the 14th and 16th centuries, the castle saw the succession of many families: Da Passano, Pallavicino, Serra, Spinola and Orsini Pio di Savoia. The guise in which it appears today dates back to the 18th century, when it was adapted by the Serra family into an elegant country residence. The castle, owned by the Doria family of Montaldeo since the beginning of the 19th century, has a complex structure in which the original structures survive, vestiges of previous use: the apparatus protruding on double brackets, the battlements and the configuration of the keep. One of the towers, which became an artist's studio in the last century and overlooks the surrounding landscape with large windows, offers a priceless view that sweeps over the Alpine chain, from Monviso to Monte Rosa, and over the Apennines, up to the Piacenza mountains

intersection between different routes, all interesting and almost all accessible; clockwise: north (left in the photo) towards the valley of the sources of S.Rocco and then of S.Limbana di Castelletto d'Orba; east towards the dirt road that passes next to the ancient Albarola tower and then goes towards Mornese/Casaleggio Boiro; after a few meters of this a detour to the left leads, among the new Tacchino vineyards, to the ridge that leads to the Bozzolina village, but it is almost always blocked by an impassable gate; south towards Lerma; to the west - where the photo was taken from - the Costa road towards Silvano d'Orba.

Madonna del Brisco, protector of off-roaders

To the north of the town, on the borders between Lerma, Silvano and Castelletto d'Orba, remain the ruins of the Torre dell'Albarola. It was part of a defensive sighting system created against Saracen incursions around the year one thousand. His task was to record the signals coming from Mount Colma and, with bonfires lit on the summit, warn the nearby Gazzolo tower (S. Cristoforo), which would send the alarm to the plain. Whoever climbs the tower immediately realizes the reason for that location: from up there the view extends from the Piota valley to the entire Apennine range, and then further down towards the hills up to the Po Valley. Tradition has it that it later served as a bell tower for Santa Maria in Prelio, that is, for the parish church of Silvano d'Orba, as it is located on a hill to the east of it. Towards the end of the 17th century, the Abbey of San Filippo Neri was built near Albarola, from which the name of today's Abbazia farmhouse derives

Via Roma, 11, 15060 Castelletto d'Orba AL

Gates in the building

Anti-Saracenic sighting tower, it was part of the military defense set up by Berengario II, king of Italy, around 950. Exceptional panoramic point.