Springtime is a great incentive for us all to get out and about, rediscovering some of our favourite walks along inviting hillsides or off the beaten track along the valley

bottom. 

Here’s a gentle enough outing for all the family, starting at Pianazzola one of the most distinctive villages seemingly suspended above the valley itself at around 600m. It’s 5 km by car which you can leave near this highly original and popular settlement – particularly with foreign visitors it seems – giving the place a somewhat ‘international’ flavour. It is inhabited all year round, is a natural sun-trap, and has a very favourable microclimate – ideal for vines and chestnut cultivation. It’s worth allowing a few minutes to look at the village itself; houses of all shades and shape hosting geranium be-decked balconies along the gravity-defying narrow little ways. Don’t neglect the 15 C. church dedicated to San Bernadino da Siena with its exterior fresco of St. Christopher, its splendidly carved altarpiece and 17/18 C. artwork within. Next we head off eastwards along a path through chestnut woods as far as Cranna. A steady walk of about an hour with some magnificent panorama to take in along the way. It’s very much an up and down affair along ways well-trodden by locals over the years. But it’s much quieter nowadays and evokes a mellow, rustic ambience, with dry stone walls and buildings along a route which keeps walkers in close contact with nature and the surrounding habitat. We are now moving up the valley towards Piuro and pass the church at Loreto with its distinctive twin bell-towers.

Among the many hamlets along the Bregaglia valley sides, Cranna remains an absolute gem. We’re above Prosto at just 550m height and can fully appreciate the majestic peaks of Italian Valbregaglia with Chiavenna down below on the valley bottom. There was a population here of around 100 some years ago but it was gradually abandoned as people moved down to the town, but in recent years it has taken on a new life thanks, in no small part, to the road linking it to Prosto. Have a look at the church of S. Giuseppe (1674) built on the site of an earlier chapel. Heading back towards the valley the path moves towards Piuro. Of the many options available we suggest a wander towards Borgonuovo where the path ends up close to the magnificent Acquafraggia waterfalls.