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Self-Catering Holiday Accommodation situated in Ceriana, Liguria, Italy A quality family holiday apartment available in the beautiful Italian village of Ceriana, set in the heart of the region of Liguria on the Riviera dei Fiori The perfect base for walking, painting or skiing holidays or for just exploring the Ligurian coast from Nice to Genoa and beyond. For more details of the apartment and the area surrounding Ceriana please select the Contents link to the left of the page Ceriana clings to a rocky wall of the Armea valley, inland from San Remo, and is one of the most interesting historical villages in the part of Liguria not lapped by the sea. Its old houses, often of unplastered stone and arranged in circles, form an extraordinary maze of alleys, short flights of steps and underpasses. The entire village is extremely well preserved, and its medieval charm and atmosphere are truly unforgettable. It is believed that the original nucleus, the 'Castrum Coelianae', was founded by a Roman family, the Celii, but the medieval settlement developed downstream of it in proximity of the Armea stream which provided the required hydraulic power to drive the several oil presses in the area. One of them with stone millstones, is still in use. The most important monument of Ceriana is the Holy Spirit church, formerly Saint Peter's parish church. It is a large Romanesque construction built in the 12th century and often renovated in the following centuries. The only part remaining of the original church is the lower section of the pinnacled belfry. Worth seeing are the two 16th century doors on the right side. The three-nave interior is divided transversally by a peculiar work of masonry. Close to the Holy Spirit church is the Oratory of Saint Catherine. Its facade is from the 17th century and is reminiscent of those designed by Borromini. It is also the place where one of the four fraternities of the village (the Reds) holds its meetings. The interesting Sanctuary of Madonna della Villa, built in the 18th Century and decorated with stuccos and frescoes by the Carregas, sits a few kilometers from the village, higher up in the hills and past terraces cultivated with olive trees and grapevines. The people of Ceriana preserve their traditions with love and enthusiasm. One such tradition is the choirs. There are as many as five different singing groups in the village. They organize an important folk music festival every year, attended by visitors from many other regions. Ceriana sings: Yes singing is to be heard very often in Ceriana not only during the Eater processions. The citizens of Ceriana are proud of their Choirs and often talk to visitors about them. Currently, five choirs prosper: the Compagnia Sacco is the oldest Choir, founded in 1926, and is very international; it has held concerts in the United States and has toured Europe. The choir is currently composed of 12 men and interprets pieces from a very wide holy and secular repertoire from the 'Miserere' of the brotherhoods to the most typical 'tavern' songs. There is a first and second voice accompanied by the 'bordone' base of the other members of the choir. The Choir has made 3 CDs and a video of its activity and that of the village. The Coro delle Mamme Canterine, founded in 1969, is composed of 14 women who interpret a vast repertoire of ancient songs from Western Liguria and Ceriana, as well as praises and hymns in Latin; the songs are sung with three voices accompanied by the guitar. The Mamme also tour Italy and Europe with their concerts. The Coro della Valle was founded in 1960 as an Alpine choir and sings songs from Western Liguria and works from a holy and secular Ceriana repertoire. It is a male choir composed of 21 singers and has made several albums and sung with the Sanremo Symphonic Orchestra. It sings traditional songs in four and five voice polyphony accompanied by the guitar and the double bass. Then there is the Coro delle Garsune de Seriana, composed of girls from 4 to 13 years of age. founded in 1975 it sings old nursery rhymes and songs in dialect written by composers from Ceriana, accompanied by the guitar, with particular attention to modern works. With rare exceptions, it performs only on the evening of 7th September. Last but not least the parish Schola Cantorum is one of the oldest institutions of the town. The international importance of Ceriana as a centre for singing is also proved by the Festival-Convegno Internazionale delle Musiche della terra that is held every year in Ceriana during the summer.
A walk around Ceriana Up and down the main street: Corso Italia is the main street of Ceriana. The name is a bit obvious but it doesn't matter: Corso Italia is the urban section of the provincial road that links Ceriana to the rest of the world and is practically the only road in the town where motor vehicles are allowed because the steep, warren of alleyways are only good for mules and 'Shank's pony', as old ladies used to call walking. After leaving the car in one of the car parks to be found at both ends of the village centre, Corso Italia can be enjoyed on foot and at leisure: coming from the sea, in the first section of the road, climb Via Padre Embriaco, named after the Dominican Father Embriaco da Ceriana who was an ingenious and strange inventor: he invented the water clock erected on the Pincio near Villa Borghese in Rome and he also patented the martinicca (skid), a kind of cog brake for wagons. Just passed this, the balcony of the Town Hall displays the municipal coat of arms in which an arm stretches our from a series of hills with a finger raised towards the sky, pointing at a star. What is the meaning of this unusual symbol? Who knows! alongside the Town Hall glows the recently renovated Palazzo Rubini, built as a kindergarden in 1866 commissioned by Giovanni Maria Rubini, a wealthy farmer and today renovated by the Rubini Foundation. Palazzo Rubini houses the kindergarten, a multi-purpose cultural hall and the municipal library. There are plenty of other interesting things in Corso Italia: people come from as far away as Sanremo to enjoy the fruit ice creams at the Gelateria de Pelegrin. Just a few steps away we come to the Bar Rina, a shinning example of a village bar, with its pensioners and loafers playing cards and discussing politics, the grape harvest and boar hunting; the end wall, behind the card players tables is covered with a beautiful fresco by Nino Lupi, a professor of art from Imperia who here has reproduced a photo of 1900 showing Ceriana seen from the bottom of the valley near the church of Santo Spirto. The photo was faithful to reality but the fresco isn't: by a whim of the artist something is missing ... what? Look and you will see. Rinaldo Embriaco, a devoted regular of the Bar Rina, especially just after lunch, with whom is is a pleasure to chat about the village, will give you a hint to help you find the answer. From Corso Italia, before the tunnel that passes under the oppidum, Via Don G Cassini leads to the sunny square of the magnificent seventeen century parish church dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul which can be entered through a small side door. Inside the visitor should spend some time looking at the polyptych of saint Peter in his chair dated 1526 and the triptych of saint Catherine of Alessandria dated 1545 by Francesco Brea, the nephew of the more famous Lodovico. In the outer part of the square called Piazza dei Consoli, there is a sundial, unfortunately no longer working, and the plaque in memory of the maternal home of the famous Nobel Prize-winner, the chemist Giulio Natta. We remember that another famous scientist was a native of Ceriana, Gio Batta Crespi, the inventor of blast furnace liners. Up and down the hill the village is a fascinating labyrinth of alleyways: from Piazza dei Consoli we find Vicolo Forni, narrow, steep and darkened by the houses that climb up it, angular, decorated at teh beginning by a picturesque display of dozens of decorated plates hanging on the stone walls of the houses. Towards the lower part of the centre we find (amongst others) Vicolo Pena and Vicolo Piazzale that is a flight of steps rather than an alley and that brings us to the beautiful arcade of the Palazzo dei conti Roverizio di Roccasernoe, architecturally majestic even if in need of restoration. From Palazzo Roverizio, via Mario Laura descends into the quartiere dei frantoi (olive mill district) and across the Ospedale bridge we arrive at the most mystic corner of Ceriana, the monumental complex of Santo Spirito, formed by the Antica Collegiata di San Pietro, the Oratorio di Santa Caterina and the Palazzo that looks out onto Piazza San Spirito. San Pietro is an elegant church of Romanesque origin that recent restoration has left white on the inside, with a beautiful Baroque altar and some ancient frescoes. The lintel of the side door was sculptured in 1513 by the stone sculptors of Cenova, masters of sculpting stone. The whole complex of buildings has not been totally renovated but this does not diminish the charm of the natural and architectural environment of this rather isolated corner of Ceriana. The light stone and ivy-clad Nocetta bridge leads to the hill that brings us back to the town centre through the Gate of Oppidum or or Sorrow, perhaps going back to teh times of the Roman castrum, beyond which the road enters a panoramic portico under the lee of the naked rock. A gap (more like a trapdoor) opens near the door from which boiling oil was poured onto attackers during raids by Barbary pirates. If, instead of descending from the church square, we go up along Via Raffaele Doria, we reach Via Celio where we go through the narrow Castrum Coeliannae Gate, between the medieval houses that breach the Roman wall. Further up we reach the peaceful, tidy, silent square where flowering plants, benches and placid cats surround the Romanesque Church of Sant'Andrea, built over the ruins of the Roman acropolis: the sandstone columns that mark the boundaries of the naves would be the same a the Temple of Apollo, and the high bell tower was a watch tower probably built on Roman foundations. This is the second 'mystic' place of the village, after Santo Spirito: one right at the bottom and the other at the top.
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