Patron saint festival In 28 days
Feast of Saint Martin
📅 Every year, on 11 November
On 11 November Toirano celebrates Saint Martin of Tours in the church named after him, in the municipality of the Varatella valley caves.
Nearly eighty cavities open in the valley of the Vero. The most famous is called Basura, which in the local dialect means witch, and beside it is the grotta del Colombo; inside the first part of another cave, meanwhile, the sanctuary of Santa Lucia was carved out, with two cypresses in front of it and the valley opening towards the sea.
The oldest core of the village is called Toracco, from the medieval Latin for foot of the tower, and of the towers there remain the bases, a few stretches of wall and the three-arched bridge known as delle Giaire. Toirano was long disputed between Genoa and the marquisate of Finale, until in 1385 pope Urban VI assigned it to the Genoese. The population is 2,669.
The Toirano guide
What to see 5
grotte di Toirano · abbazia di San Pietro in Varatella · Museo etnografico della Val Varatella and 2 more
What to eat here 1
Pesto alla Genovese
Where to stay 26
26 places to stay · top rated: Hotel Ca' De Berna 9.6 · La casina del sole 9.6
Events & festivals 1
Next up: Feast of Saint Martin, Wednesday 11 November
Getting there
Nearest airport: Genova, 59 km away
Tours, tickets and experiences
Bookable on GetYourGuideExperiences in Toirano
🎉 Festivals and feasts in Toirano 1
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What to see in Toirano
grotte di Toirano Footprints 12,000 years old, a cemetery of cave bears and a column eight metres high. 
abbazia di San Pietro in Varatella A Benedictine abbey older than the year 1000, on the summit of Monte Varatella above Toirano. 
Museo etnografico della Val Varatella In the stables of Palazzo D'Aste, eighteen sections on the trades and tools of the Val Varatella. 
chiesa di San Martino Consecrated in 1609, with Graffigna's frescoes on the vault and a 14th-century bell tower. 
santuario di Santa Lucia A church cut into the rock above Toirano, made a sanctuary by a bull of Leo X in 1519. Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Toirano
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Places to see within 25 km
Outside Toirano, but an easy day trip away.
Chiesa di Sant'Ignazio di Loyola 📍 Carpi · 11 km Jesuit church of 1670-1682 in Carpi, on a Greek-cross plan, with scagliola altars and the diocesan museum. Basilica cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta 📍 Carpi · 11 km Carpi cathedral begun in 1514 to Peruzzi's design, reopened in 2017 after the 2012 earthquake. Chiesa di Santa Maria in Castello 📍 Carpi · 12 km Romanesque pieve of 1184, the oldest church in Carpi, with a Peruzzi façade and twelfth-century frescoes. Chiesa di San Bernardino da Siena 📍 Carpi · 12 km Patron church of Carpi, begun in 1604, with the reliquary bust of Saint Bernardino of Siena.