The hamlet is called Alpe and its church is dedicated to the Madonna of the Snow: in a mountain village of the Valle Scrivia that is not a poetic choice, it is a declaration of residence. The devotion comes from the Roman legend of an August snowfall that showed where to build a basilica, and up here it found people who dealt with snow for six months of the year.
What to see
The inhabitants of Alpe built themselves a first chapel in 1720. The present building is instead of the eighteen-forties, put up in three years; the dome and the bell tower came later, at the end of the century. On the high altar is a marble statue of the Virgin.
For a long time the community depended on the parish of Vallenzona: autonomy came only in 1894, by decree of the archbishop of Genoa. Between the first chapel and a parish of its own almost two centuries passed, which is the normal time in which a mountain hamlet wins the right to be enough for itself.
Visiting
The church is in the hamlet of Alpe di Vobbia, in the upper Valle Scrivia; it is a mountain parish church, so it opens for services and is busiest in summer. A quarter of an hour.
Our editors' tip
You are a few kilometres from the Castello della Pietra, one of the most improbable places in Liguria: a medieval fortress wedged between two rock spires, which from a distance looks like a geological mistake. You reach it on foot from the valley floor and it can be visited in the warm season. If you have climbed this far, do not leave without it.