Home

A rural town on the Impero River, Chiusavecchia belonged to the bishops of Albenga and later to the Doria family and the House of Savoy, like all of the territory around Monte Arosio in the upper Oneglia Valley. It is a valley municipality situated on a wide and important road between the coast and Piedmont. The name Chiusavecchia derives from "chiusa", the Byzantine bulwark (lying on an axis with Chiusanico) that was breached by the Lombards in the seventh century. The occupation by Germanic races is witnessed by the names of places lying closest to the sea: Sarola (from the German "sala", meaning "master's house") and Gazzelli (from "gahagi", meaning "private terrain").

Vineyards, and especially olive trees, have been an important feature of the landscape for centuries in Chiusavecchia, where the ancient olive presses are still working today. Even a sanctuary has been dedicated to the olive, the Madonna dell'Oliveto, which was built in 1564 but restructured down the centuries. Besides the elegant Baroque bell tower and the organ built by Maestro Agati, there is a splendid pebbled parvis outside the church with traditional "rissoi" designs. The view from the sanctuary takes in the entire Chiusavecchia plain as far as the sea.

The parish church of San Biagio and San Francesco di Sales belongs to the Baroque period and has a curious bulb-shaped bell tower. Some fine restoration work on the interior has managed to save a wooden crucifix sculpted by an anonymous craftsman around the fifteenth-sixteenth centuries. The bridge across the Impero goes back to the late Middle Ages. The churches in the districts of Sarola and Olivastri are from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries respectively. Some roads leading out of Chiusavecchia take you through the oak woods and olive groves up to Monte Acquarone (732 m.) and to the towns of Lucinasco, Chiusanico and Torria.

Sarola is located below Chiusavecchia and is only 15 minutes away from the sea by car. In the small medieval town there are many little alleys just begging to be explored on foot.