Dolcedo

The village of bridges and olive mills, a few minutes from our apartments

Dolcedo lies down in the valley, where the Prino stream meets the Rio dei Boschi. We are above it, in Lecchiore: a few minutes' drive down.

It's a village you walk around in an hour, and it's worth that hour.

The bridge of 1292

The symbol of Dolcedo is the Knights of Malta Bridge, a single stone arch spanning the Prino.

It was the Knights of Malta, who had a base at Porto Maurizio, who funded its construction to ease their journeys westward and into Piedmont. Dolcedo was a crossing point towards the inland valleys and France.

From the bridge you can see the houses overlooking the stream, palazzi dating from the fifteenth century, with their altane — the loggias on the top floor where food was once dried.

Piazza Doria and the Loggia

The centre is Piazza Doria. Under the town Loggia, now part of the town hall, you can still see the old measures for oil and wine, and the rods set into the wall used to check the length of cloth: the official instruments of trade, back when Dolcedo was the commercial centre of the valley.

In the surrounding streets you can still make out the side openings of the old shops, built as counters facing the street.

A little further on stands the church of San Tommaso, medieval in origin but given its baroque appearance by the architect Marvaldi — the same man behind the Corallini church in Cervo.

The water mills

Dolcedo owes its fortune to olive oil. The abundance of water provided the driving force, and for centuries the village was a busy centre of olive pressing.

Walking along the river you can still see the arches supporting steps, troughs and water channels for the mills. Further up, towards the hamlet of Ripalta, a second stone bridge crosses the Rio dei Boschi, and you can still make out the wheels and channels of the old water mills.

It's the same story that continues at our place, a few kilometres higher up: our mill is modern, but the olives are the same.

Around the village

Around Dolcedo opens a valley of olive terraces, old mills and a network of mule tracks that for centuries linked the hamlets with the hinterland. Many paths have been restored and waymarked, and are now routes for walking or mountain biking.

Dolcedo also has its sferisterio, the court for pallapugno, an ancient sport of western Liguria. If a match happens to be on, it's worth stopping: you won't see it anywhere else.

Coming up towards us you pass through the hamlets: Costa Carnara, Castellazzo — where the oldest church in the valley stands, dedicated to Saint Mary, with its Romanesque apse beneath the baroque remodelling — and then Lecchiore.