In Falmenta, the most populous village of the Valle Cannobina, at 670 metres below Monte Zeda, a building a few steps from the parish church keeps the old press with which, for generations, oil was drawn from walnuts. This is the Museo del Vecchio Torchio: small, essential, and for that very reason faithful to the valley it tells of.
What to see
The one great piece is the press itself, the big wooden machine that gives the museum its name: in an alpine valley without olive trees, oil was squeezed from the fruit of the walnut trees, and tools like this one were the pivot of a mountain subsistence economy. Around the object the museum gathers the memory of a labour that depopulation has switched off: since the nineteenth century the Valle Cannobina has lost most of its inhabitants, and the press has stayed on to tell how people lived up here.
Our editors' tip
The museum gives its best as part of the valley's little museum circuit: the ecomuseum of the Lake and Mountains at Lunecco and the small Gildo museum at Crealla, the hamlet reachable by paved road only since 2001. Half a day across the three stops renders more of the Valle Cannobina than any panoramic viewpoint.