Top 5 Castles around Prelà

Castle dating back to the 16th-17th century. With a quadrangular plan, the castle is equipped with four watchtowers and guard posts at the corners on the first floor. Surrounded by a defensive moat, the original drawbridge has been replaced by a stone staircase. The slate portal bears the inscription “NEC SILENTIO TRANSEUNDA”: no one could access the residence without knowing the password. Beyond the main door opens a vestibule decorated with medallions, coats of arms, and portraits of the Aleramo family, among the oldest lords of the castle. All the rooms of the palace have maintained their authenticity almost intact over the centuries. Among the noteworthy spaces are the room that hosted Saint Leonardo of Porto Maurizio and the ancient prisons. In the castle cellars rests the "Metodo Classico" Deperi made from Pigato grapes. At the base of the castle, vineyards of Ormeasco have been planted, a grape variety historically imposed on Rezzo by the Marquises at the end of the 13th century. The building still represents one of the most important Ligurian examples of a palace-fortress,

Diano Castello is the most beautiful village in the valley. It still preserves its medieval nature. At the beginning of the village, note the fresco of the siege of the Dianese Valley by the Pisans.

The castle is built on masonry structures from various periods between the 12th and 14th centuries, which bear the signs of destruction by the Spanish in 1611. An ancient stronghold and the scene of fierce battles, it constitutes, at least in its original layout, an excellent example of medieval military architecture from the 12th century. The construction of the castle probably dates back to the first half of the 10th century.

Wonderful View over Diano Marina and Cervo! With the bike, the car or the bus you can climb the hill. But it is definitely worth it👍

This trait Brevisismo has recently been redone as it once was, that is, with stones positioned cut and stuck together, without concrete. The result is one of the few occasions to see how the mule tracks used to be, when they were still well maintained, without weeds and years of neglect. In addition, from here you can take excellent photos of the town, the castle and towards Vasia PS: you can go down on foot, gravel or MTB

The village of Prela is now reduced to a few houses, a row of buildings almost entirely restored by foreign owners who understood the value of the country years ago. The houses are compressed between the ruins of the ancient castle and the church of SS. Giacomo and Nicolò, which closes the village downstream. This place took its name from the "petralata" that is the large stone on which the feudal lords had built the fortress several times destroyed and rebuilt. The castle, placed to guard the via Marenca, which connects with the via del Sale, was demolished after the last Genoese reconquest. Antonio Doria in 1340 destroyed the castle of Prela Soprana from the very foundations; the castle itself was later rebuilt further down on the rocky spur, where the remains of the four semicircular towers can still be seen today. The massive construction with huge irregular stone blocks, a wall and a contiguous tower, have some slits in the upper part and traces of internal stairs for the disengagement of the various floors and environments. The external tower was connected to the castle; according to popular tradition, the various "colombere" or watchtowers located in the surroundings were also connected by means of tunnels. Since the early 2000s it has been owned by a German private individual who is taking care of its restoration. The church at the end of the village, recently restored, stands on a mass of overlapping rocks segregated from each other so as to leave interstices and underground caves, which, pushing under the floor of the church, form a kind of impracticable and deep underground, within where until 1845 the dead were laid, through a hole in the center of the floor of the main nave. Inside there are decorations, stuccoes and a complete organ from around 1700. The church is the matrix of all the others in the valley (i.e. the one that first generated all the other churches, making new copies of the original sacred scriptures)

Nice village reachable from Diano Marina with an easy uphill road that is not too demanding

Diano Castello, a beautiful town also for evening visits to underground sources!