The best walks and hikes around Castellaro

Pietrabruna owes its name to the color of the stone used to build its first buildings at the end of the 11th century

Beautiful scenic trail on which you can occasionally encounter cows or horses

There's something mystical about Mount Faudo: a trail of ancient stories, far back in time. Today, it's best known for the marathon trail that climbs from Imperia to its summit and for the antennas dotting it; yet for centuries, it was a contested land between the church, neighboring states, and the villages on its slopes. Since the ancient Ligurians, well before the Romans. It shares this burden with Mount Follia and Mount Sette Fontane. The oldest evidence of human settlement in the Dolcedo area is near Mount Follia, a conical peak on the southern slope of Mount Faudo. Traces of metalworking have emerged there, with furnaces and residential structures, dating back to the Iron Age castellari, fortifications placed high up for observation and defense, in visual contact with other castellari in the area. Today, the site is abandoned: one can still walk and imagine the defensive landscape of the ancient Ligurians.

There's something mystical about Mount Faudo: a trail of ancient stories, far back in time. Today, it's best known for the marathon trail that climbs from Imperia to its summit and for the antennas dotting it; yet for centuries, it was a contested land between the church, neighboring states, and the villages on its slopes. Since the ancient Ligurians, well before the Romans. It shares this burden with Mount Follia and Mount Sette Fontane. The oldest evidence of human settlement in the Dolcedo area is near Mount Follia, a conical peak on the southern slope of Mount Faudo. Traces of metalworking have emerged there, with furnaces and residential structures, dating back to the Iron Age castellari, fortifications placed high up for observation and defense, in visual contact with other castellari in the area. Today, the site is abandoned: one can still walk and imagine the defensive landscape of the ancient Ligurians.

The summit cross that crowns Monte FAUDO loses its effect as the crowning glory of the mountain due to its immediate surroundings: This mountain peak is obviously also a radio station, because antenna masts in the immediate vicinity tower significantly above the summit cross and unfortunately deprive this small sacred monument of its visual impact.

Monte Faudo, a word that seems to derive from the Arabic word "faud" or lighthouse, which the Saracens would have installed on the top of the mountain considering that, from that height, the view embraces a vast extension of the territory. The massif of Mount Faudo has always represented in ancient times a center around which relationships took place between the Ligurians of the Taggia valley (of Taggia) with those of the Imperia valleys; it is easily accessible from Taggia, from Badalucco, from Montalto, from Boscomare, from Pietrabruna, from Tavole, from Valloria.

a small and very ancient frescoed chapel, located at the crossroads of the roads to Pietrabruna, the Sanctuary of Lampedusa, Boscomare and the top of Faudo. Inside there are some rather ruined frescoes dating back to 1481. The church is a rare example of architectural separation that was once common, intended to separate the men's area from the women's area.

the most interesting thing about the town is the central square with a particularly important church and baptistery. Life in the valley is fabulous and there is nothing left of the original castle. Note the nearby Sanctuary of the Madonna di Loreto which is located above the town and contains numerous ex-votos as well as a fabulous view of the entire Arma di Taggia valley