Camino: one of the great castles of the Monferrato

On the first hills of the Monferrato, looking out over the plain of the river Po, the village of Camino in the province of Alessandria is dominated by a castle that seems drawn from a storybook: battlemented walls, ancient trees and a mighty square tower forty-four metres high.

A thousand years of history

First raised around the year 1000 at the will of the bishops of Asti, the castle of Camino passed in the 14th century to the Scarampi, rich bankers from Asti, who turned the fortress into a noble residence. Legend clings to its walls: Count Scarampo Scarampi, accused of treason, was beheaded here in 1494, and his wife Camilla is said to have thrown herself from the great tower in grief, so that on certain nights, the story goes, her weeping can still be heard. Today the castle is privately owned and opens for special events.

The village and its hills

The village below, first recorded as Caminus in 1151, is a quiet place of some seven hundred people among vineyards and woods, with the house-museum of the visionary painter Enrico Colombotto Rosso among its curiosities. It was also the birthplace of Giovanni Battista Boetti, the 18th-century friar said to have become the mysterious prophet Mansur in the Caucasus.

Where it lies

Camino is a short drive west of Casale Monferrato, in hills within about an hour of both Turin and Milan.