Pinerolo is an Italian town in the metropolitan city of Turin, in Piedmont. It was the capital of the district of the same name. The majestic setting of the Alps, the luxuriant nature of the Pinerolese Valleys, the fascinating history of its past, the food and wine goodness of its typical dishes make it an interesting destination and a city to discover. Pinerolo is a City of Culture, which over time has been able to create various museums of the highest quality, as well as a calendar of events of the highest level.
“Seen from above, placed as it is at the mouth of two beautiful valleys, at the foot of the Cottian Alps, in front of a vast plain, sown with hundreds of villages, which look like white islands in a vast green and motionless sea, most beautiful city in Piedmont.”
Pinerolo is the Olympic City, which was able to make itself known and appreciated in the world during the XX Olympic Winter Games, home to curling competitions. Pinerolo is the City of the Cavalry, which has been able to pass on the charm and splendor of an ancient tradition and still today part of the beauties of the city.
History
The territory of Pinerolo has been inhabited since prehistoric times, as evidenced by the findings of bracelets, axes, chisels and fragments of bronze tools that took place near Piazza Guglielmone in the early 1970s. The Roman domination has the most famous evidence in the necropolis of the Doma Rossa, which came to light during the works for the construction of the Turin-Pinerolo motorway in 2003, an indication of a presumably agricultural presence in the territory of Riva di Pinerolo.
Middle Ages
Pinerolo is a populous rural settlement, spread throughout the territory and divided into at least three villages, around as many small country churches and its castle. The late medieval era is marked by a strong urban development, and it is not for nothing that the main medieval buildings still existing today in Pinerolo date back to these centuries.
The toponym of Pinerolo appears for the first time in 981 with the name Pinarolium (pine forest) in a diploma of Otto II which confirmed the properties, rights and privileges on the city enjoyed by his predecessors to the bishop of Turin. In this period Pinerolo was not a real city, but a Court formed by the villages of San Verano, San Pietro Val Lemina, San Maurizio (the upper village of Pinerolo, including the castle demolished in 1696) and San Donato (lower village). At the time, of these villages San Verano was the most important, being at the entrance to the Val Chisone.
In 1064 the powerful Countess Adelaide decided to found right here, in the hamlet of San Verano, a Benedictine monastery dedicated to the Virgin, whose riches will bring artisans and merchants to Pinerolo, transforming it from a rural village into a small capital, engaged in the main activity manufacturing of the time, textile production, and in other industries typical of the late medieval cities, based above all on the use of hydraulic power such as the production of paper and metals.
It experienced struggles and rebellions under Thomas I of Savoy, who had occupied it in 1220, and strong contrasts with the abbey of San Verano which, in 1243, gave up its rights in favor of Amedeo IV of Savoy and his brother Tommaso II of Savoy. Under Thomas and his descendants of the Acaia branch it had peace and prosperity: elected capital of their possessions in Piedmont in 1295, it remained so until the extinction of the Savoy-Acaia branch in 1418, when Amedeo VIII united all the possessions in a single state of the Savoy in Italy and France.
Renaissance
In the fifteenth century, however, the history of Pinerolo also reached a decisive crossroads from a political point of view: the Duke of Savoy, Amedeo VIII, annexed Piedmont to his possessions, but the position of Pinrolo was considered too marginal and in the fatal year 1436 the duke decreed that the council and the university remain forever in Turin, which thus officially became the capital of Piedmont.
It underwent French domination from 1536 to 1574, after which it received the title of city from Count Emanuele Filiberto di Savoia. Besieged and taken by the French army, commanded by Cardinal de Richelieu himself, in March 1630. It was again occupied by France under the Treaty of Cherasco (1631). Cardinal Richelieu then entrusted Vauban, the greatest French military engineer of the time, with the task of making Pinerolo an extraordinary stronghold, destined to guarantee France control of Northern Italy. It will be one of the frontier strongholds of the kingdom of France for sixty-six years, until 1696, but with the return to what would become a little later the Kingdom of Sardinia, Pinerolo definitively lost its character of fortress.
At the expense of continuous expropriation of property and land, the city walls were restored, the castle was rebuilt, the citadel was enlarged. Only two gates remained in the city, that of France and that of Turin. Many artisan workshops were demolished and the workers transferred to Lyon, whose industry was strengthened at the expense of that of Pinerolo. The fortress of Pinerolo, the Donjon, was also used as a prison, where Louis XIV sent his enemies, including the mysterious character known as the ” Iron Mask “.
Pinerolo was reconquered by Vittorio Amedeo II of Savoy in 1696, but before leaving the Sun King’s troops blew up the citadel and the castle. Carlo Emanuele III obtained from Benedict XIV the appointment of Pinerolo as a bishopric. Trade recovered, the population rose from 5,000 to 7,000 and religious orders flourished again.
The restitution treaty, in fact, required Vittorio Amedeo II to completely dismantle the mighty fortifications; Thanks to those demolitions, however, the city was able to start a new urban expansion, as the effects of the great European growth of the eighteenth century were felt here too. The textile industry regained vigor and began to modernize, assuming for the first time the characteristics of the industrial revolution then underway in the most advanced countries of Europe, and economic development was accompanied by a significant urban recovery: the most majestic city buildings still existing today, such as Palazzo Vittone. Furthermore, the demolition of the Arsenal and the ramparts made it possible to begin planning the expansion of the city towards the plain.
Modern period
In 1801, Piedmont was annexed to France and Pinerolo was the last time occupied by the French. In the Napoleonic era, the growth of the Pinerolo textile industry continued, also thanks to the commissions of the imperial army, and alongside the wool and silk industries, paper mills and especially the typography flourished.
Until 1814, with the fall of Napoleon and of his empire and the return of Piedmont to Vittorio Emanuele I. In 1821 the insurrectionary movement led by Santorre di Santa Rosa and Guglielmo Moffa di Lisio began in Pinerolo, a prelude to the Italian Risorgimento. A period of economic and building development began: bridges, roads, railways (the Turin-Pinerolo line was inaugurated in 1854), which facilitated trade with Liguria and the rest of the region.
In 1848 the first Mutual Aid Society of Italy was founded in Pinerolo, the “General Society of Workers” created for “… union, brotherhood, mutual aid and mutual education”. In 1849 the Cavalry Application School (suppressed in 1945) was transferred to the city (from Venaria Reale), now home to, among other things, the National Museum of Cavalry Weapons and the Museum of Prehistoric Art.
The construction of the Turin-Pinerolo railway, inaugurated in 1854, sanctioned the full integration of the city and its hinterland into the nascent industrial system of the North-West, and in the same years the urban transformation closely followed the growth of the city, beginning to give it the a face that is still recognized today. From the lateral valleys a new population flowed into the city: the inhabitants increased from 12,000 in 1819 to 18,000 in 1890.
With the reforms of the first unitary governments, the city also began to take on the role, which it still retains today, of a school center for a vast territory of mountains and plains. But the military presence also left its mark on the urban landscape; in fact, already in the Napoleonic age, the city was once again the seat of a large garrison, and even after the Restoration the Savoy government continued in this policy. The Cavalry School, established in the city in 1849, remained there even after the Unification, definitively transforming Pinerolo into the capital of the Italian cavalry.
In the twentieth century Pinerolo saw further industrialization, with the birth of new factories, such as the Officine Meccaniche Poccardi Pinerolo, founded in 1897 by the entrepreneur Francesco Poccardi, who in 1938 dedicated himself to the production of machinery for the paper industry; in 1957 they were acquired by the Beloit Corporation, a US company in the sector, which made them the European pole of its production. The confectionery industry also developed in Pinerolo with the Galup company, known for the production of low panettone, produced locally but with particular market areas also abroad.
Nowaday
In the early years of the 21st century, however, the Pinerolo industry entered a crisis and, also to compensate for the difficulties of the industrial sector, the city focused more on tourism, having had a glorious past as the capital of the principality of Piedmont from 1295 to 1418.
Economy
Around Pinerolo gravitates the economy of the Waldensian Valleys (orographic right side of Val Chisone, Valle Germanasca and Val Pellice) and of the plain that extends between the outlets of these valleys and the course of the Po. It is home to various industries (in the mechanical, paper, chemical, clothing sectors) which also absorb labor from nearby towns; the most prominent companies are Freudenberg Sealing Technologies (Ex Corcos – seals for rotating shafts and valve stems), TN Italy (Ex Euroball – balls for bearings), PMT (paper manufacturing plants), Mustad (vines) eGalup (panettone, colombe and local baked goods). It was the seat of the Talco e Grafite Val Chisone Company. Pinerolo is the trade center of the surrounding mountain area, being also the seat of the Pinerolese Pedemontano mountain community.
Historical heritage
There are numerous medieval houses, including: the “Palazzo dei Principi d’Acaia” or Castel Nuovo, built in 1318 and later modified; the fifteenth-century “Casa del Senato”; the “Casa del Vicario”, a 16th century brick building.
Piazza Vittorio Veneto (better known as “Piazza Fontana”)
It is the central meeting point of the Pinerolo people; designed in 1738, it was built by leveling the moats in front of the seventeenth-century walls. This vast area was until 1830 the arms square of the town, one of the largest in Italy; today it is home to the weekly markets (Wednesday and Saturday). Inside there is a fountain with a monobloc basin in Malanaggio stone and the marble statue dedicated to general Filippo Brignone, hero of Palestro, by Odoardo Tabacchi (1879).
Palazzo del Comune
Overlooks the north side of Piazza Vittorio Veneto. Originally the arsenal of the city fortress, during the years of fascism the facade was renovated and the civic tower built. Alliaudi Municipal Library, whose building was the seat of the branch of the Bank of Italy until the 1950s, with over 100,000 volumes, manuscripts, incunabula and a precious collection of rare books.
Palazzo Vittone
Located on the east side of the same square and takes the name of the architect Bernardo Antonio Vittone, a pupil of Filippo Juvarra, who designed it in 1740. It was commissioned by King Carlo Emanuele III of Savoy to welcome the Hospice of the Catechumens. From 1816 it was then assigned to a municipal college, then a bishopric and finally, from 1867, a civic college. Today it is home to important museums and cultural institutions. Starting from 1896 the construction of the New Episcopal Seminary began in an area north of the Town Hall. It houses the Civic Museum (Bodonian relics, weapons, coins, nineteenth-century paintings of the local school).
Principi d’Acaia Street
From piazza Duomo, continuing along the arcades in via Trento, the steep slope of via Principi d’Acaia opens up to the right and climbs towards the hill of San Maurizio. This street, once called the Doreri for the artisan shops that overlooked it, was in medieval times the axis of connection between the “piano” and the “village” and still bears important evidence of that time, such as the Casa del Vicar characterized by valuable terracotta decorations, on the corner with via Trento, so called because it was for a period the town residence of the vicar of the abbey of Santa Maria, and the Casa del Senato, formerly the seat of the Cismontano Council and today an evocative setting of the temporary exhibition on the Necropolis of the Doma Rossa
Riding Caprilli
Behind the building of the Alliaudi Library, in the square embellished with flower beds, stands the Cavallerizza Caprilli of 1910, once the largest and one of the most beautiful in Europe, which presents in the corners of the four sides the equine figures in the round, symbol and reminder of the famous Riding School in the city. The building, with its large dimensions, its linearity and brightness, was frequently used for training, horse competitions and also on the occasion of city events such as, for example, the large banquet offered on the occasion of the appointment of the lawyer Facta as president of the Council of Ministers in 1922.
Acaja Palace
The building is located in the historic center of Pinerolo and is positioned on the hill of the city, fitting into a context of stately private homes. The gross surface area of the building is 1620 square meters. It is spread over 5 floors. The complex is characterized by the presence of 2 gardens, one in the basement and a high garden of approx 575 sqm, plus an internal courtyard of approx 100 sqm. The Palazzo is a fourteenth-century building. It is characterized by the presence of a hall of honor with frescoed walls in grisaille dating back to the ‘400 representing war scenes and plant motifs that constitute a historical testimony of great importance. Traces of the cylindrical tower crowned by battlements are still visible on the roof, as it appears in all the seventeenth-century prints of the city.
House of the Vicar
It was the residence of the abbey vicar of Santa Maria in Borgo di San Verano and is the corner pivot of a complex of buildings in which the typical defensive characteristic of medieval agglomerations is still evident. The house, deeply remodeled inside, still retains the terracotta friezes of the facades, while the so-called “sedan stone” (pejra dla rajson) is visible on the rounded corner, to which the debtors were forced.
The Social Theater (1842)
Destroyed by fire in 1972 and reopened in 2008, and the Waldensian Temple (1855 – 60), built after the emancipation edict of Carlo Alberto, date back to the 19th century.
The remains of the thirteenth-century walls
Surrounded the upper village, still visible along the top part of Via Ortensia di Piossasco and part of the walls of the seventeenth-century citadel, commissioned by King Louis XIII, hidden in the woods of the San Maurizio hill.
City of the Cavalry
A glorious past that of the Cavalleria in Pinerolo. And an equally bright future for the City of Cavalry. A story made up of riders from all over the world who came to Pinerolo to learn one of the most important methods in the world of horse riding. If Italy since the sixteenth century has become the cradle of world academic equitation, with the schools of Naples, Padua Ferrara, thanks to the “Masters” Fiaschi, Pignatelli and Grisone, in the nineteenth century Pinerolo renewed this Italian pride, establishing itself as one poles of major international interest thanks to the introduction of a new “natural system”, an innovative method, conceived, studied and taught by the Cavalry Captain Federigo Caprilli.
Pinerolo, from 1849, became the seat of the Military Riding School. Knights from armies from all over the world came to the city. Just in 1849, despite a very severe selection, 144 cavalry officers from 33 nations came to learn the “new method”. A combination that has come down to today, which has been able to hand down and preserve what is truly glorious, illustrious and noble that has happened over time. Pinerolo is rediscovering and relaunching this excellence and today the Pinerolo – Cavalleria combination is increasingly established and known internationally.
The Riding School, for war reasons, closed its existence on September 8, 1943, without jolts, without any future projection. In 1990 the idea of its reconstruction was resumed, approving the Executive Project and starting the first functional lot (8 September 2004), qualifying it as the “National Federal Riding School”. In 1994, to give greater depth to the idea of the School, the International and National Horse Competitions began which today bear the name of Pinerolo all over the world. The goal is that Pinerolo “City of the Cavalry” can recover its heritage, rediscover and reconstitute so much prestige, bringing back to its splendor the Italian equestrian art in which ITALY had for so long the absolute primacy.
Religious heritage
Piazza del Duomo and the Cathedral of San Donato
The Cathedral, dedicated to San Donato di Arezzo, was the heart of the city from the very beginning of the village of Pinerolo. The cathedral, originally in Romanesque style, underwent repeated alterations over the centuries that led to the current structure in neo-Gothic style. The facade of the Cathedral has three portals surmounted by lunettes and was frescoed by the painters Vacca and Rollini. The painting of the Shroud in the lunette of the right portal recalls that the famous shroud was present in Pinerolo and was exhibited in this square, probably in the spring of 1478. The church has also undergone numerous transformations inside, linked to the artistic tastes of the various eras.
The square in front of the Duomo is today a space reserved for walks, music meetings, theater or even just a pleasant stop among the scent of the nearby pastry shops. Among the buildings that surround it you can see, above the low arcades with irregular arches, the beautiful house with friezes and elegant tympanum windows, where Silvio Pellico lived for some years.
Hill and Basilica of San Maurizio
The airy square of San Maurizio, today a tree-lined avenue and partly used as a parking lot, in medieval times was instead the center of the upper village, full of houses and life, animated by markets and a fountain. During the second French domination, houses and street furniture were demolished to transform the city into a mighty fortress of the Sun King, Louis XIV. An effort of the imagination is therefore necessary to “see” the Borgo di San Maurizio in medieval times: its small church, the adjoining cemetery, the houses with arcades and a tingle of life in the narrow streets one next to the other and not very distant from the castle.
At the end of the large avenue of horse chestnuts we reach the basilica of San Maurizio, whose first nucleus already existed in 1078. The building, which has been enlarged and renovated several times, has a solemn basilica appearance with five naves and precious 15th century frescoes. The high fourteenth-century bell tower, punctuated by mullioned windows and three-mullioned windows, culminates with a slender spire.
The adjacent Sanctuary of the Mother of Divine Grace owes the graceful white marble facade to the project of the engineer Stefano Cambiano, who also designed the square in front, from which you can enjoy a magnificent view of the city.
Church of S. Agostino
The church of Sant’Agostino, or better known as the Church of Santa Maria Liberatrice, was built in 1630. It has a simple unfinished facade that encloses an equally sober interior, barely embellished by the stucco high altar and by a significant canvas depicting the Virgin in the act of protecting Pinerolo from the plague.
Sanctuary of the Madonna delle Grazie
With an intimate and refined interior, with a central plan, slender lantern and small dome, it dates back to the primitive structures in 1584 and has undergone a whole series of interventions that have been renewed several times until 1910; subsequently, in execution of the liturgical norms of the Second Vatican Council, it assumed its current appearance. Along the internal walls, an uninterrupted row of ex-votos, of which not only the testimony of faith is to be admired but, in some cases, a touch of popularly naive and effective art. The facade on the splendid square designed by Stefano Cambiano is also from 1910. The panorama that can be enjoyed there is also part of the beauty of Pinerolo, and worthily completes the glimpse of the architectural complex with a touch of incomparable grandeur.
Church of the Holy Cross
Designed in 1718 and completed only in 1747, based on designs by the architect Re. In Baroque style, it stands on the same place where an oratory of the same name already stood, with a Greek cross plan. Inside there are decorations by the painters Bettola and Vacca, while the choir stalls come from the church of San Domenico, from which they were removed in 1823 after the transfer of the church to the Congregation of Charity. On the occasion of the celebrations for the bicentenary of the consecration, in 1947, the building was restored on the initiative of the rector, canon Giuseppe Barra
Church of San Rocco
The church of San Rocco was built close to the battlements of the ancient fortifications, on an area that belonged to a now demolished powder magazine, purchased by the Confratelli di San Rocco and consecrated in 1697. The building was enlarged in 1700, but in 1744 the church was rebuilt. The smooth front without decorations flanked by two symmetrical bell towers and the triangular pediment. The interior, which is rather small and rich in decorations, is particularly interesting.
Sanctuary of the Sacred Heart
The house annexed to the Sanctuary, founded in the early twentieth century, saw the return of the Oblates to Pinerolo, after they had been evicted from the house of S. Chiara, the second foundation site after that of Carignano. The remains of the Founder, the Venerable Padre Pio Bruno Lanteri, are preserved in the Church Sanctuary of the Sacred Heart. Seat of the studentate until the end of the Second World War, the house currently guards and makes available to scholars the large library of the Congregation, with theological texts dating back to 1500. The House is under the legal responsibility of the Rector Major.
Church of Santa Chiara
The ancient convent of Santa Chiara, now Jacopo Bernardi Rest Home, is named after this Abbot, man of letters, scholar, patriot, educator and philanthropist.
Visitation Monastery
The Visitandine nuns arrived in Pinerolo in 1634, a few years after the birth of the order itself: they settled in a house with a garden in the village of San Maurizio, but in 1643 they moved to a more suitable building – the Palazzo Porporato, current seat of the monastery – and the extension and restoration works began. The nuns immediately began the activity of female boarding school, which remained active until 1896 and was attended by young nobles from all over Piedmont. Construction of the church began in 1671 based on a design by the military architect Motte de la Myre, who did not ask for any compensation for his intervention. The work on the main parts of the building was completed in 1678, while the internal decorations are from the eighteenth century: the main altar and the marble side altars are particularly noteworthy. The main altarpiece depicts the visit of Mary to Elizabeth, while the chapel of St. Francis de Sales houses the painting by Beumont which depicts the founding saints of the Order; the chapel of the Holy Family, also rich in marble, is decorated with frescoes by Giuseppe Delany and Nicola Peiroleri.
Ortodox church
Along Via Archibugieri, preceded by a stone churchyard, is the former church of S. Bernardino da Siena, built in the eighteenth century in Baroque style, on a previous chapel built under papal license in 1505. The church was given in use by the Diocese of Pinerolo to the Romanian Orthodox Parish, dedicated to Saint Stephen the Great. The interior, according to the Orthodox custom, is full of large icons that cover almost all of the walls and the high altar has been transformed into an iconostasis.
Waldensian Temple
The Waldensians settled in Pienrolo after the Napoleonic occupation following the Emancipation and the definitive abolition of the alpine ghetto in which they were confined for many years. It was inaugurated in June 1860 until 1926 when Eng. C. Decker carried out a major renovation. The interior of the temple, now on the ground floor, responds to the classical scheme, with the organ on the back wall, behind the pulpit, according to Anglo-Saxon custom, and an unusual decoration of the ceiling with stars on a light blue background. The stained glass windows date back to the 1957 restoration.
Chapel of Santa Lucia
The chapel of Santa Lucia in Pinerolo, after years of neglect and decay, has been the subject of a restoration, which has made it possible to recover the precious fifteenth-century frescoes of the vault, attributed to the workshop of the Pinerolese painters Bartolomeo and Sebastiano Serra. The chapel was thus rediscovered first of all by the Pinerolesi.
Church of San Domenico
In 1440, near the Porta di San Francesco, the construction of a new monumental church began, with five naves: it measured 60 meters in length, for a width of 34 meters; ten cruises for the side aisles, seven for the central nave. Today only a part of the church of the fifteenth century remains: the siege of 1693 saw it devastated by the bombings that hit the bastion of Schomberg, inside which the church was located. A fire ruined it and only part of it was rebuilt.
Surrounding
Abbadia Alpina, a municipality until 1928, rich in industries, located west of the capital, along the SS 23 of Colle di Sestriere. It is located where the abbey of Santa Maria stood in the place known as San Verano, founded by the Marquise Adelaide in 1064 and destroyed by the French in 1693. The parish church, dedicated to San Verano di Cavaillon and built perhaps to a design by Juvara, dates back to 1724 (start of work: 1708, inauguration: 1727) and houses the tombs of two bishops of the House of Savoy.
Baudenasca, also in the past a municipality, where, on the banks of the Chisone stream, with a splendid view of the Monviso, there is the military gallop; in this hamlet a Carnival with allegorical floats has been celebrated for some years.
Riva di Pinerolo, located on the edge of the Sestriere road in the direction of Turin, 4 km from the capital; there is a medieval castle, called Motta dei Trucchetti, dating back to the 14th century.
Talucco, a hamlet famous for its exquisite Tomin elètrich (electric tomini), where since the 8th century there was a Benedictine monastic cell belonging to the Novalesa abbey. Its inhabitants are nicknamed “talucchini”.
Pascaretto, a hamlet that rises at the northern end of the territory of Pinerolo, divided with Piscina and Frossasco.
Culture
Pinerolo experienced its moment of greatest splendor when (from 1295) it was the capital of the Acaia dominion and a center of culture, with a flourishing school of notaries and with the presence, for the figurative arts, of numerous artists such as Beltrami and Canavesio from Pinerolo, as well as others whose works have been lost. In 1475, following the initiative of the French Jacottino de ‘Rubeis, it became a prosperous center of typographic art.
Museums
The MUPI is the Museum System of Pinerolo that connects all the city’s museums and their collections with a coordinated management of services to propose an integrated cultural offer and make the city’s historical, artistic and archaeological heritage accessible with a single entrance ticket and a single opening time.
Historical Museum of Cavalry Weapons: in the premises of the former Cavalry Application School you can admire the collection of relics, the important library and the historical archive.
Study Center and Museum of Prehistoric Art (CeSMAP): archaeological finds, international rock art and educational section.
Ethnographic Museum: popular culture, traditions, customs, work, environments of the plain and valleys of the Pinerolo area.
Mario Strani educational museum of natural sciences: geology, flora, fauna, mycological collection, mineralogy of the Pinerolo area and the surrounding valleys.
Civic Art Collection of Palazzo Vittone: masters of painting and sculpture of the ‘ nineteenth century, the twentieth century and contemporary.
Diocese Museum: historical and artistic evidence of religious life in over 250 years since the foundation of the diocese.
Historical Museum of Mutual Aid: it is the registered office of the General Society of the Workers of Pinerolo.
Doma Rossa Museum: Roman archaeological finds found in the Pinerolo area.
Traditions and festivals
Every other year in October, in Pinerolo, the historical re-enactment of the Iron Mask takes place, one of the largest and most important events in the city. In fact, legend has it that the mysterious historical figure resided in the citadel of Pinerolo; on the hill of San Maurizio there is a small monument dedicated to this legend
Sustainable tourism
Hiking
These are easy walks to discover characteristic corners and panoramic views of the city of Pinerolo.
Casa Canada – Bertrand Trail
The Giuseppe Melano “Casa Canada” refuge is an alpine refuge located at the foot of Mount Freidour, in the province of Turin, at 1,060 m. The new shelter was built by reusing the structure of the Canada house, one of the support structures used during the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics. Near the refuge is the Rocca Sbarua rock gym, used by mountaineers. The cliff has over 100 climbing routes, ranging in length from 20 to 200 meters, with different degrees of difficulty. Near the refuge there is the path of the charcoal burners. Several further hiking trails are practicable starting from the structure.
Bertrand Trail
The path adopted by the AIB (Anti Forest Fires), WWF (World Wild Fund) and CAI (Italian Alpine Club) is named after David Bertrand, a young AIB who died in the Monte San Giorgio Provincial Park during the Piossasco fire in 1999. institutional this initiative is promoted by the Province of Turin and the Municipalities of Piossasco, Roletto, Cantalupa, Pinerolo, Frossasco, Trana and Cumiana, interested in crossing the permanent path. The route, starting from Roletto (town where David was born) passes through the Monte Tre Denti – Freidour Park and arrives, via a ridge path, at the Monte San Giorgio Park (place where the young man died), up to the Casa Martignona. The route has a total length of 35 km and a positive difference in height of mt. 1,500, characteristics that make it suitable for receiving a good level trail race.
Bike
The Marca Pinerolese project by the Province of Turin, the Pinerolese Mountain Community and the municipalities of the Pinerolese Plain, includes 32 marked itineraries of different types: on dirt roads, paths, secondary country roads, in mountains, hills and plains. From Cavour to Vigone, from Cumiana to Prarostino, from Bricherasio to Bobbio Pellice, to the military roads of Assietta and Conca Cialancia…
Route d’Artagnan
The ‘Route d’Artagnan’ intends to be the first transnational equestrian and tourist itinerary, which covers three thousand kilometers through six member states (Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands) and touches on the significant points concerning the deeds of D ‘ Artagnan the illustrious musketeer of Louis XIV. The Route d’Artagnan was initially conceived as an equestrian itinerary but later it will become accessible to other forms of tourism such as: hiking, cycling and carriages. The Route d’Artagnan is to have the European Cultural Route label. The quality of the accommodation facilities along the route as well as the promotion of local gastronomic products. The local historical, cultural, environmental and gastronomic heritage will be promoted throughout the length of the Route.