Tour of the Five Towers – Stage 5: Vengore (Roccaverano) - Monastero Bormida

Outdoors

From the Vengore tower you go down along the asphalted road, you cross it and then descend the steep escarpment to join a steeply downhill path with a stone wall and a pine forest to its right.

Once you reach a mulberry tree, turn left onto a flat road that runs along the hillside and which is covered with abandoned forest strips. Here, a magnificent oak tree stands out.

When you get to the hamlet of Garroni, back on the provincial road towards Denice, follow this route for about a hundred metres and then turn onto a dirt road that climbs along the hill ridge. Once you reach the top, you can enjoy a breathtaking view of the Bormida Valley of Spigno, with its grey clay gullies, and the tower of Denice below, facing the tower of Castelletto d'Erro.

Next, take a downhill path through the woods (with boundary markers between municipalities), then turn left into the woods and reach a forest road leading to a dirt track and then, back to the asphalted road to Denice. The route runs downhill for a while and then, if you want to avoid the asphalted road, you climb up along a footpath on the left ridge of the road. Once past the ridge you descend along the asphalted road and continue as far as the junction to the right which leads to Case Cova (on the left you will see a wooden cross on a carved sandstone base).

The asphalted road bends to the right and leaves the ridge to descend towards Denice, but here we climb up the ridge along the dirt road that takes us through a wood and then down to the hamlet of Santa Libera with its small church and old school. From the hamlet of Santa Libera, keep going downhill towards Monastero Bormida, follow the asphalted road for a few metres and then turn right to climb up to the ridge and enter the woods again. Next, you go back down onto the asphalted road and follow it for a short stretch until you reach a bend to the right, here you turn left onto the old mule track that once led to Monastero Bormida.

The descent takes you back onto the asphalted road. After two hairpin bends, when you get to a junction, turn left for a few metres and then right again onto the old mule track which soon becomes a footpath and joins again the asphalted road towards Monastero Bormida, which you will reach by turning right and walking alongside the cemetery. Once you have crossed the river on the medieval bridge you will find yourself in front of the imposing castle, which is the final destination of our itinerary.