Patron saint festival In 303 days
Feast of San Rocco
📅 Every year, on 16 August
On 16 August Balzola, a municipality of 1,420 inhabitants in the province of Alessandria, celebrates its patron San Rocco.
Balzola is the northernmost town in the Alessandria province, on the left bank of the Po, inside a close net of ditches feeding the rice fields: rice rules everything here. The name seems to come from Latin balteum, a ledge, and its diminutive balteola: the step left by the river eating its own banks. The arms show a sickle cutting a sheaf of ears beside a golden lion.
In 1615 Charles Emmanuel I's troops burned the village to keep the Spanish out. The parish church of the Assunta, bare brick, designed by Ottavio Magnocavallo, keeps a canvas by Orsola Caccia, Moncalvo's daughter; San Michele has a Jacob's Ladder signed by Pietro Francesco Guala in 1722.
🎉 Festivals and feasts in Balzola 1
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Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Balzola
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Places to see within 25 km
Outside Balzola, but an easy day trip away.
abbazia di Santa Maria al Porale 📍 Ronco Scrivia · 9.9 km Founded by Cistercians in 1208 for pilgrims on the Via Postumia, today a chapel with a fresco of 1446. Castello di Francavilla Bisio 📍 Francavilla Bisio · 10 km The medieval castle of Francavilla Bisio: towers, moat and six centuries of Spinola, Grillo and Guasco. Castello di Lercaro 📍 Ovada · 11 km A Lercaro fortified villa of 1570, given to the town in 1872 as a hospice, now a ruin chiesa di Nostra Signora Assunta 📍 Ovada · 12 km Sober baroque inspired by Genoa, with twin bell towers and Pietro Ivaldi's vault. chiesa di Santa Maria delle Grazie 📍 Ovada · 12 km Founded by Dominicans in 1481, with a high altar brought from Genoa in 1690 chiesa dell'Immacolata Concezione 📍 Ovada · 12 km A plague vow of 1631, first stone in 1640, and an almost total rebuild after the 1935 fire