Excursions
The fortified road
From the small borough of Collemacchia, just a handful of houses in the sun, an old road goes up the slope between gardens fenced by dry stone walls, fig trees, manna ashes and wild fennels. The scent of mint is intense.
After a few minutes, mighty stone walls appear, used as pens for livestock in the last centuries. Then the road continues, the slope eased by the terraces.
Once at the pass, the view opens to the surrounding mountaints: Pantano, Falconara, Mainarde.
The path touches old “mandre” (folds), after which the valley underneath (valle Mandre) was named. Outcrops of grey limestone are covered with lichen.
The trenches of the Gustav line, built with heaps of rocks, are still intact.
Near a redbud the path enters a wood and bends between oaks, hornbeams, maple and cornels. Dry stone walls are everywhere and remind of when also the mountain was cultivated.
On the northern side the road, a five minute detour alongside a wall brings to a tholos, almost intact and covered with vegetation. It is an old shelter for shepherds, of conic shape and build with stones overlapping to form a dome.
Farther on the wood opens to the serenity of the valley. Slightly ahead the Morzone chapel can be found. It was built at the end of the XIX century to celebrate the appearance of the virgin Mary to two young girls. Behind the chapel the path goes back into the wood.
Beyond the Vallone the path climbs to a comfortable westbound road protected by two dry stone walls. It’s the old road for the borough of Mennella, used by those climbing the Rio Chiaro valley coming from the plain underneath.
The path winds for about a mile until it reaches the fortification, where it becomes a narrow staircase that enters the walls from the east.
An ancient square tower overlooks the valleys underneath. To the south the boroughs of Selvone. Pantano and Mennella can be seen. To the north, the gorge of the Rio Chiaro.