Cammino PiemonteSud — Spigno Monferrato stretch

The Cammino PiemonteSud is a multi-stage itinerary through the inland areas between the province of Alessandria and the Langhe, crossing a system of rural territories that organised tourism has largely overlooked. It is not a route built around a food-and-wine narrative or a Unesco heritage site: it is a network of trails connecting villages, valleys and countryside according to a logic of geographic continuity, relying partly on the waymarking of the Club Alpino Italiano (the Italian Alpine Club) and partly on unpaved country roads that follow the natural profile of the land.

Stage 18, which links Pareto to Spigno Monferrato, measures 16.1 kilometres and is classified as difficulty T, meaning touristic, suitable for those who walk regularly without needing technical equipment. It starts from Pareto, at 476 metres above sea level, and descends to the 216 metres of Spigno Monferrato, with an ascent of around 214 metres and a descent of around 419. The estimated time, excluding stops, is four hours and thirty minutes. The route is available in GPX format for those using digital navigation devices.

Spigno Monferrato occupies a rocky spur separating the Bormida Valley from the southern Monferrato. The historic centre is compact, built vertically according to the defensive logic of the medieval villages in this Apennine belt, where elevation counted as much as walls. The Bormida Valley, running along the valley floor, is a geographic corridor that has historically connected southern Piedmont to Liguria, and the villages perched along its slopes — Spigno among them — still reflect in their structure that function of controlling and overseeing the territory.

This stretch of the Cammino PiemonteSud belongs to a quadrant of Piedmont that does not fall within the established routes of the northern Monferrato, the land of Barbera and Grignolino, nor within the Langhe of Barolo. It is a rougher, less photographed Monferrato, where the landscape alternates vineyards with coppiced woods and where the settlements are small in scale with an uneven tourist presence. Walking these trails means moving through a landscape that has not yet been redesigned for hospitality, and where the original shape of the agrarian and settlement pattern remains legible.