Triora, stone alleys and witches in the upper Argentina Valley

There are villages that tell their own story, and Triora is one of them. Clinging at almost 800 metres of altitude in the upper Argentina Valley, at the far western edge of Liguria almost on the border with France, it is a maze of stone lanes, arches, underpasses and tall, narrow houses that seem to hold one another up. From here your gaze runs over the mountains and the Argentina torrent that carves the valley floor: a harsh, mountainous landscape, worlds away from the postcard image of the Riviera.

The witches of Triora

The nickname "village of the witches" is rooted in a precise historical episode. Between 1587 and 1589, when Triora was a podesteria of the Republic of Genoa, a long famine set off a hunt for those to blame: dozens of women were accused of witchcraft and subjected to interrogation and torture. The proceedings dragged on until they involved the Genoese government itself, in an affair that long remained in the village's memory. It is a painful memory, one the village today tries to read without turning it entirely into spectacle.

What to see

To understand it, it is worth climbing up to the Ethnographic and Witchcraft Museum, which weaves together the peasant life of the past with the events of the trials. Then you walk: the remains of the medieval castle, the carved portals, the churches scattered across the municipal territory. Outside the built-up area is the Cabotina, an old stone farmhouse that local tradition points to as the gathering place of the accused.

When to go

Triora has, however, a problem well known to those seeking quiet destinations: 31 October. Halloween turns it for a day into a Gothic mass-tourism destination, with crowds that distort its slow pace. The good news is that all you have to do is choose another moment. On a May or September morning the lanes are deserted again, they smell of bread (Triora's bread is a small institution) and the silence of the mountain does the rest.

Getting there

You can only arrive by car, along narrow roads that climb up from the coast at Imperia: a natural filter that keeps hurried tourism away. It is worth every hairpin bend.

Related guides: Hidden medieval villages in Italy: gems far from the crowds · Instead of the Cinque Terre: colourful Ligurian villages without the crowds · Where to go in October without the crowds: villages, foliage and a sea still warm.

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