The moaning that came out of the old church of the Santissima Annunziata at night was barn owls. They had nested in the gap between the roof and the barrel vault, since collapsed, and out of that the village built a legend of ghosts and devils that explained the abandonment better than the truth did. The truth is geological: the whole site, in the hamlet of Pero at Varazze, is sliding downhill in a slow, steady landslip. Finished in 1861, the church was closed to worship in 1959, less than a century later, and abandoned outright in 1968.
What to see
What is left is an unsafe ruin, and it is looked at from outside: every entrance has been bricked up. The stone walls are soaked, because the roof has lost much of its tiling and lets the rain through; the small vaults have broken one by one and the fixed furnishings have crumbled. On the right-hand side, though, the plaster held: a few frescoes painted in the years immediately before the First World War are still visible there, and it is the only part of the building that still carries an image.
The other half of the story stands opposite. When the old church was given up, the parish built a new one, dedicated again to the Santissima Annunziata, about a kilometre away and on the far side of the Teiro valley: the two face each other across the valley, one standing and one in ruins, and that comparison is worth the trip more than any architectural detail.
Visiting
The old church sits along provincial road 542, the one that climbs from Pero, a hamlet of Varazze in the province of Savona, towards Stella San Martino. It is visible from the roadway, and there is nothing to pay and no opening hours to keep, because the building is deconsecrated and shut: the bricked-up doors are not a temporary measure, they are the safety works. If you come by car, look for a pull-in before stopping, since the road is narrow and has no pavement.
Our editors' tip
We do not go up to the walls and we do not look for a way in: the landslip is still working and the building is declared unsafe. The right spot is the opposite slope, near the new church, from where the old one is seen whole, with its broken roof and the field around it. That is where the story is understood at a glance.