Nice walks between wines and vineyards
We are in Valle Arroscia, one of the main wine valleys of Liguria; we start from Ortovero, a hamlet of the hinterland of Albenga that can be easily reached from the highway exit of Albenga; it is rich in cultivations of fruit trees, roses and vineyards. On request you can visit the Cooperative of local vine-growers (Viticoltori Ingauni) and the Public Wine Shop of Ponente Ligure that has been recently inaugurated at the Wine Centre of Ortovero on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the local DOC wine, as, from 1988, the wines Pigato, Vermentino, Rossese and Ormeasco, of which the Cooperative is the main producer, have the quality seal DOC Riviera Ligure di Ponente. Quality agricultural production has always been at the centre of Ortovero life, so that it is the protagonist of an annual feast, the village festival of peaches and Pigato wine, that is organized every August.
You start from Don Armato Park in Viale Chiesa, you take direction San Giovanni oratory and you find an elliptical Baroque building with a risseu church courtyard (typical Ligurian realization with white and black pebbles that make geometrical/symbolical figures). Go on direction Villa, move to Lignolo and Nunziata street sloping down; the path goes on sloping up towards Garassini, then again down through Pogli, a nice ancient fortified hamlet, where you can still see five towers and parts of the walls. Here you cross the pedestrian bridge on the Arroscia stream, you take the public dirt path for Pogli-Ortovero till the bridge for Villanova; at this point you come back through Ponte street in Viale Chiesa, closing a ring that does not show any difficulty as it is large and plain, it is 5 kms long and you can make it in about one hour and a half/two.
Otherwise you can walk on a longer and a bit more difficult path that slopes up for the first half; you start from the same point, in the centre of Pozzo, where there are the ruins of a castle built in the XIV century for the Clavesana, of a tower and signs of a deserted village. Turn right towards the Argille di Ortovero, an interesting area from the geo-archaeological point of view, as these white clay takes its origin from an advance of the sea over the lands during the Pliocene era. Then you go towards the Colletta and along the pedestrian for Campi; at this point you get into the area of Vendone. You pass through Celsa; near the tower in Castellaro place there are about twenty big white-light pink steles with geometrical drawings, they are the sculptures realized by Reiner Kriester in a sort of open-air museum. Then you pass through Crosa and, leaving on the right another area rich in vineyards, start the sloping down, pass Migliarina and Barbigioni, then Campi di Ortovero and come back to the starting point; the whole run takes about 2 hours and half and it is 8 kms long.