The village sits in the province of Savona, yet its parish church does not answer to the bishop of Savona: Sant'Eugenio belongs to the diocese of Acqui, within the Savona pastoral zone. It was built between 1620 and 1650 to replace the older parish church of the same name, today the church of Santissima Annunziata, founded centuries earlier by the Benedictine monks of the Sant'Eugenio monastery on the island of Bergeggi. The dedication is to Eugenius, bishop of Carthage.
What to see
The facade, framed by two small bell towers, was partly rebuilt in 1901 and gives the church the outline you recognise from anywhere in piazza monsignor Bertolotti. Inside there is a single rectangular nave with four chapels on each side and a wide presbytery: a plain scheme, where the eye runs straight to the far end.
What survives of the seventeenth century is mostly the masonry shell. Nineteenth-century works, above all those of 1875, altered the original layout deeply, so much of what you see now is a modern skin over a seventeenth-century body. The church also keeps the wooden statue of Saint Sebastian, made around 1900, brought here from the village oratory when that building was closed to worship.
Visiting
It is a few minutes on foot from anywhere in the old centre: the square is the main one, and the church is still an active parish, so access follows the times of services. Outside Mass hours, entry is not guaranteed.
Our editors' tip
Take an extra half hour and line up the three churches of Altare: Santissima Annunziata, the first parish church; Sant'Eugenio, which took its place in the seventeenth century; and the former oratory of San Sebastiano, now in private hands. Three stops, all within a short walk, and the religious history of the village reads from end to end.