The Val di Vara is located in the province of La Spezia, inland Liguria, behind the Cinque Terre. The valley, a few kilometres from the sea at Levanto and Bonassola, borders Tuscany and Emilia Romagna. Divided into Alta, Media and Bassa Val di Vara (Upper, Low and Mid Val di Vara), it owes its name to the river Vara, which runs through it longitudinally for 58 km.


The river rises from Monte Zatta to flow into the Magra, of which it is the largest tributary, at the level of the Santo Stefano di Magra plain at Fornola.


In 2020, The Guardian, one of the most authoritative British newspapers, reported the Alta Val di Vara, also known as the Organic Valley, as one of the twenty most alternative places in the world to spend a holiday for the beauty of the landscape and the biodiversity of the area.

Territory

Defined as the greenest valley in Italy thanks to its dense vegetation, the Val di Vara appears as a hortus conclusus: a garden, from the Cinque Terre to the first high grounds of the Apennines, rich in panoramic views, Mediterranean scrub and points of interest, such as the various Romanesque churches, immersed among chestnut, pine and oak trees.

The valley is bordered by Mount Zatta (1407 m.), where the Vara river has its source, Mount Zuccone (1423 m.), Mount Porcile (1249 m.) and Mount Gottero (1640 m.), a conformation that separates it from the valleys of Parma. To the south-east, Monte Fiorito (1093 m.) and Monte Cornoviglio (1162 m.) separate the valley from Lunigiana (Province of Massa).

In Val di Vara there are important archaeological presences such as the Lagorara site in the municipality of Maissana and the Cota site in the municipality of Carro.

Characterising the valley from an architectural point of view are the ’round hamlets’, settlements of medieval origin whose urban roots are to be found in the ‘castellari’, structures built in prehistoric times by the first Ligurian tribes. Traces of these stone belts, on heights overlooking the valley, can still be found at Zignago, Vezzola, Pignone and at Castelfermo in Carro.




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Culture

The Val di Vara is an open-air museum where medieval hamlets, many of them in stone, offer interesting architectural elements with ancient marble or slate portals and palaces with façades painted in the Ligurian tradition. The churches and oratories in the area themselves reveal sculptures, bas-reliefs and paintings of great interest that are still little known to the general public.

The territory has been able to combine the traditions linked to the farming civilisation with the promotion of organic production and the protection of agro-biodiversity, considering that seven municipalities – Carro, Carrodano, Maissana, Rocchetta Vara, Sesta Godano, Varese, Ligure, Zignago – belong to the Val di Vara Biodistrict recognised by the Liguria Region.

There are numerous religious festivals and popular fairs organised to celebrate events related to the sacred or to celebrate the spring, the grape harvest, the honey and chestnut harvest or the mushroom season.

And there are many events that take place every year, such as the Paganini Festival in Carro, with concerts in the hamlets of the valley, the Pignona Sweet Onion Festival in Sesta Godano, the Val di Vara Book Festival in Varese Ligure with two days of events with authors and publishers, the Festival of Peasant Culture in Vezzanelli-Zignago with workshops dedicated to agriculture, and the Valle Bio Festival in Varese Ligure dedicated to the territory’s organic producers.

Cathedral, Parishes, Shrines and Oratories

The religious history of the Val di Vara has its centre in Brugnato, which originates, in the 7th century, from the Benedictine Abbey founded, according to tradition, by Saint Columbanus to whom, together with Saint Peter and Saint Lawrence, the Cathedral, next to the Diocesan Museum, is dedicated.

In each hamlet there are one or more churches to visit. The system of ecclesiastical organisation had its centres in the baptismal churches (pievi), which gave rise to a series of smaller churches under their dependencies (chapels), which in time broke away and became autonomous parishes.

There are several Sanctuaries, often dedicated to the Virgin Mary. These Sanctuaries are in places that bear witness to a miraculous apparition of the Virgin, and near springs, caves, and forests, proving Christian devotion over pagan places of worship.

Objects of particular devotion are the Sanctuary of the Madonna del Dragnone in Zignago, overlooking a vast panorama, built on the site of an earlier pre-Christian cult, and the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Roverano, which was built in 1518 and enlarged in the 19th century to accommodate the ever-increasing number of worshippers.

In the Val di Vara, there are many oratories that are seats of confraternities, associations born in the Middle Ages that continue to carry out, as in the past, charitable tasks.

Val di Vara, land of castles

Castles, fortifications of medieval origin that also served as the residence of feudal lords, are scattered throughout the Val di Vara. In many hamlets there is evidence of a fortified building, such as in Cornice, Ponzò, Groppo, Chiusola and Godano, razed to the ground by the inhabitants after the murder in 1525 of Alessandro Malaspina, the local feudal lord.

Among those that have retained their original layout and can be visited are the Suvero Castle, the Calice al Cornoviglio Castle, home to the Beekeeping Museum and the Beghè Art Gallery, and the Fieschi Castle in Varese Ligure with its characteristic round hamlet. The Malaspina castle of Madrignano, at an altitude of approximately 400 metres, dominates from above the wide plain of the Vara river up to its natural outlet in the coastal area. In Ceparana we find the Giustiniani Castle with its square tower and the remains of the Abbey dedicated to San Venanzio.