Stone walls in western Liguria

by Ludovica Schiaroli

Dry stone walls characterize our entire region: from east to west there are about twenty thousand km terraced by man. They are called cian in the Cinque Terre, or Maixei from the Latin maceries and are the legacy of our ancestors who with difficulty tore up a bit of land meter by meter from the slope.

Not far from Finale Ligure it is possible to immerse yourself in a still uncontaminated environment that tells our roots well. We are in Calvisio Vecchio where you can easily walk to the small rural agglomeration of Lacremà: a handful of houses where time seems to have stopped and which tells well the peasant society that built them. The buildings, like the walls all around, are built exclusively with what was found in the area, often it is the living rock to be excavated, a very practical and economical way to meet the housing needs of the time.

But you have to leave the small village of Lacramà and take the Salita ai Bricchi to rediscover a magical and enchanted place: caves, rock carvings, ancient shelters and imposing dry stone walls recall a heavily man-made landscape in past centuries. Of great importance is the mysterious megalithic circle of Camporotondo, whose access is made even more spectacular by the many dry stone walls that surround it and signal the ancient presence of man