Vegliasco Tower itinerary

The itinerary, marked in the first part of the uphill stretch with a hollow red circle and red line , begins at the crossroad of Via Adelasia and Via Cardellino. After the first 150 metres of Via Cardellino, take the cobbled path on the right that leads steeply uphill (signposted for the Palazzo region).

At an altitude of 210 metres, you need to be careful: bypass the dirt track to the right and continue following the path to the left, which climbs through scrubland over thickly layered rocks. Further uphill, there is another turning to the left which you will take on the return journey (signpost for the Due Vie region and Vegliasco, trail sign: a horizontal red line ). The trail becomes cobbled again and goes past the ruins of Palazzo, then comes to a beautiful renovated complex to reach the Vegliasco - Cavia scenic road beyond. Follow the slightly sloped paved road* to the left that crosses the whole green valley of Rio Cardellino in just over a kilometre, passing first on the slopes of poggio Moscai and then poggio Scotteri. Along this part of the route, you come across a large mural depicting the faces of all the Presidents of the Italian Republic and a little further on, you pass the La Salamandra cave.

At a fork in the road, take a left into the woods and you will soon reach the village of Vegliasco, where you follow the paved road to the right (trail sign: two red diamonds ). As soon as you reach a bend, take the ridge path on the right* that, after a short climb through the Mediterranean scrub, leads to the 16th-century tower of Vegliasco: The beautiful artefact, which has a bas-relief of Adelasia above the entrance (with characteristic gaps in the masonry where the old door hinges were), is surrounded by cistus bushes and offers a splendid view of Cape Mele, the hamlet of Vegliasco and Mount Tirasso, where the sanctuary of Madonna della Guardia stands on the summit.

It is worth continuing uphill for a short distance to admire the historic centre as far as the Boggiano farmhouse, then doubling back to the houses of the lower part of the hamlet where, at a clearly visible structure with solar panels, you follow the paved road downhill (same trail sign with two red diamonds ). After passing a row of cypress trees, you then go downhill to the left: from the bend, a path through dense woodland soon leads back to the carriageway.

Turn to the left and walk for about 400 metres in the shade of remarkable specimens of Aleppo pine, hackberry, downy oak and elm, until you come to first the ruins of the Palazzina and a renovated tower house soon afterwards. Just beyond, the signposts lead to a downhill cobbled path on the right, which follows a fairy-tale ridge surrounded by abandoned strips of land and then continues for about 200 metres until it heads left onto a path that passes behind a building (trail sign: red horizontal line ).

The route first passes alongside the ruins of a small building against the rock and then passes under a large oak tree, after which, it heads slightly downhill towards the bed of Rio Cardellino and the high forest that surrounds it.

Slightly downhill, it takes a few minutes to come across the route taken uphill , which you now follow downhill to the starting point.