At Altare glass was made for eight centuries running. To join the guild an outsider had to pay three hundred lire in Savona money, then spend four years stoking the fire and another four as an apprentice before he could call himself a master.
Unlike the Venetians, the men of Altare exported the trade: by the seventeenth century they had fifty-two glassworks scattered across the peninsula, and Bernardo Perotto, born here in 1619, obtained from the brother of Louis XIV the right to open one at Orléans, with the royal arms above it. The village sits on the Cadibona pass, where by convention the Alps end and the Apennines begin. The population is 2,127.
chiesa di Sant'Eugenio · ex oratorio di San Sebastiano · chiesa della Santissima Annunziata and 3 more
Pesto alla Genovese
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Next up: Saint Roch, the new patron after the 17th-century plague, Monday 16 August
Nearest airport: Genova, 40 km away
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📅 Every year, on 16 August
Altare celebrates Saint Roch on 16 August; its oratory, erected in 1590 and originally dedicated to the glassmakers' protector Saint Eugene, was named after the new patron only once the plague that struck the town between 1628 and 1631 had been defeated.
chiesa di Sant'Eugenio A parish church of 1620-1650, with twin bell towers on the front and four chapels a side. 
ex oratorio di San Sebastiano A plague oratory turned private house, its bell tower moved after the 1887 earthquake. 
chiesa della Santissima Annunziata Rebuilt in 1650 by a master glassmaker, on the foundations of Altare's first parish church. 
Forte Tecci A pentagonal and a triangular block over a deep ditch: the largest fort of the Altare line. 
Museo dell'Arte Vetraria Eight centuries of Altare furnaces, told inside an Art Nouveau villa of 1906. 
castello di Altare A central tower and three rings of walls on the hill: what is left of the Del Carretto castle. Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
