Orti - Vegetable Garden Walk

«[The road] passed through the vegetable gardens, and water shone darkly in the night in perfect lines between the low-lying rows of vegetables, it smelled of soggy earth, of macerated herbs, of sulphur. The expanses of greenhouse glass shimmered on the freshly sown rectangular stretches, and dogs barked furiously in the vegetable growers' sheds. It was a windless basin, protected by dark hillsides, and in the distance the hunting ground stood out in black, surrounded by a yellowish wall».
G. Arpino, “Gli anni del giudizio” (Einaudi Editore, 1958)

The starting point is the roundabout right below the Belvedere Gardens Park, where Via Alba, Via Vittorio Veneto and Strada Orti all converge. As you leave the gardens at your back, from a small picnic area on the left, follow the pedestrian path on Strada Orti. After a few metres, you go down a flight of steps and continue to the left along the pavement. After about 250 metres, you reach the very start of Strada Vicinale degli Orti, where there is a votive shrine dedicated to Our Lady and a car park on the opposite side of the road.

Once past this first stretch alongside the busy state road, you continue past greenhouses housing local agricultural produce, and on the way you come across the Chapel of San Pietro degli Orti. Continue until you turn right onto Strada Vicinale della Banchetta, and follow it for its entire length until it changes its name to Strada Gerbido. At the next crossroads, keep right and continue along the same road (signposted "Bra").

You go up the hairpin bends until you reach Via Cherasco and, after a very short uphill stretch, turn immediately right onto Via Cacciorna. Continue until the end and then uphill on Via San Giovanni Lontano, passing by the homonymous church. Once you have walked the whole street, you descend again to the junction with Via Isonzo, where you turn right past the railway overpass and, once you reach the roundabout, cross the road and turn right, walk along the pavement and return after a short distance to the starting point.