The Cammino di Oropa: Three Days on Foot from the Rice Fields to the Biella Alps

The Cammino di Oropa is a route of roughly 70 kilometres that climbs from the rice fields of the Vercelli plain to the Sanctuary of Oropa, in the Biella Pre-Alps, at 1,160 metres above sea level. It is a pilgrimage trail — the sanctuary is the most important in Piedmont — but also a journey through landscapes that change dramatically over three days of walking.

The trail begins at Santhià, on the rice-growing plain between Vercelli and Biella. The first kilometres are flat and watery: flooded rice paddies, irrigation canals, farmsteads. In spring the paddies are mirrors of water reflecting clouds and the mountains beyond. You walk on dirt tracks and embankments, with no sound but frogs and dragonflies.

Beyond Biella the landscape transforms: the climb begins through chestnut woods and stone-built borghi. The Valle Cervo opens to the left with its Walser villages and dark-timbered houses. The trail follows an ancient route, worn by centuries of pilgrims ascending to the sanctuary to fulfil a vow or ask a grace.

The final stretch is the most moving: the path climbs through forest with the sanctuary appearing and vanishing among the trees, until the broad esplanade opens and the great baroque complex reveals itself, nestled into the mountains. Oropa surprises by its scale — it resembles a small city, with its cloisters, galleries and monumental buildings — and by the silence that wraps it.

The trail is walked in 3 days with stages of 20–25 km. Accommodation is good: hostels, parish houses and the sanctuary's own guesthouse at journey's end. You eat polenta concia, toma biellese cheese and risotto from the paddies. The best seasons are April–June and September–October.

The Cammino di Oropa is one of those routes that tells Italy's story better than any guidebook: from plain to mountain, from rice to chestnut, from effort to contemplation. Three days well worth the journey.