Campomorone: a salt-road town in the hills above Genoa

Where the upper Val Polcevera narrows into the green side-valley of the Verde, the town of Campomorone spreads along the torrent only a short way north of Genoa. A community of around 6,400 people, it has long been a gateway between the Ligurian coast and the mountains of the interior.

On the road to the Bocchetta

First named in a document of 1163, Campomorone stands at the start of the climb towards the Passo della Bocchetta, the pass on the ancient salt road by which Genoese traders carried goods to and from Piedmont. That history of traffic and trade shaped the scattered villages of the valley, several with old churches, among them Isoverde, recorded as far back as the 10th century.

Museum and lakes

In the town itself the 19th-century Palazzo Balbi houses a museum of palaeontology and mineralogy, while to the north-west the Gorzente lakes, set among the heights on the watershed towards the Po valley, draw walkers and nature lovers into a landscape of reservoirs and woodland.

Where it is

Campomorone is about twelve kilometres north of Genoa, easily reached up the Polcevera valley, with the nearest railway station at Pontedecimo.