Patron saint festival In 28 days
Feast of Saint Martin
📅 Every year, on 11 November
On 11 November Palanzano celebrates its patron Saint Martin; the municipal territory is also home to the Chiesa di Santa Giustina.
Palanzano stands at 691 metres on the slopes of Monte Faggeto, between the val d'Enza and the val Cedra, and the summit of Monte Caio lies inside its territory; the surrounding Apennine is a UNESCO reserve. The name is already recorded in 1039, and two theories compete over its origin, neither of them proven: the estate of one Pallas, on the pattern of praedial place names, or the Latin palatium, the palace.
The village is the heart of the Valli dei Cavalieri, and the bargain that held them together was an explicit one: a few noble local families watched the borders and supplied the commune of Parma with mounted militias, and in exchange they exercised over those valleys a sovereignty with almost no limits. Palanzano has been the seat of their commissariat since the Middle Ages, and between the eleventh and the fifteenth centuries the terrae militum took shape here, with the Vallisneri at the centre of everything. Until the nineteenth century the comune was larger than it is now: it also took in Pieve San Vincenzo, Miscoso, Succiso and other villages that have since passed to other administrations.
🎉 Festivals and feasts in Palanzano 1
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🍝 The flavours of Palanzano
Prosciutto di Parma pork leg and sea salt, aged at least twelve months
Only Italian pork and sea salt, aged for at least twelve months: Prosciutto di Parma has held Protected Designation of Origin status since 1996.
Read more →Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Palanzano
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Places to see within 25 km
Outside Palanzano, but an easy day trip away.
chiesa di San Donato 📍 Massimino · 9.3 km The parish church of San Donato in the hamlet of San Vincenzo, baroque, built between 1818 and 1820. monastero di Santo Stefano 📍 Millesimo · 14 km Baroque church and fifteenth-century cloister, Cistercian until 1802, now inside a private castle. castello di Millesimo 📍 Millesimo · 15 km Dismantled in 1553 so the French could not take it, the thirteenth-century keep is open again. Castello di Cairo Montenotte 📍 Cairo Montenotte · 20 km The ruins of the Del Carretto castle above Cairo Montenotte, in the upper Bormida valley. Ferrania Film Museum 📍 Cairo Montenotte · 20 km Six themed rooms in Palazzo Scarampi for the plant that made Ferrania a name in world cinema. castello di Dego 📍 Dego · 24 km Ruins at Cua, above the Val Bormida, and a Napoleonic path that climbs up to them.