The municipality of Villa di Chiavenna, the last municipality of the Italian Bregaglia, is one of the oldest non-orographic Alpine borders. Close to the Italian-Swiss state border along the Maloja state road 37, it borders the municipalities of Piuro (ITA) and the municipality of Bregaglia (Castasegna until 2009).
The Villa can be accessed from the main road by car/coach  or via the Val Chiavenna cycle/ pedestrian path. In the municipal territory, the peculiarities of the Crotti are highlighted, among the oldest in Valchiavenna (15th-16th century), located mainly in the Motta area and in smaller numbers in the Giavera-Canete-Chete areas (left orographic side of the Mera river). The Crotti, located in the Motta locality (right orographic side of the Mera), is served in the tourist-cultural context by the cycle-pedestrian path that from Chiavenna arrives in the nearby Val Bregaglia in Switzerland and is connected via a path network to the old nucleus of Savogno located in the municipality of Piuro. The same cycle-pedestrian path also embraces those of the Giavera hamlet, and from there, you can access the hamlets of Chete and Canete. The crotti are privately owned and still serve as meeting places in the summer while also storing food products.
In the exclusive territory of Villa di Chiavenna, there are also present, in ancient nuclei, small buildings used for drying chestnuts, called “Gràa” (given the various chestnut groves present in the territory); these represent a peculiarity of the town and demonstrate the importance of this fruit as a main food in the past.
The ancient connection between the hamlet of Canete and the center of Villa was a simple path with steps and a small bridge thrown over the Forra della Mera, which today is replaced by the passage over the dam barrier.
It is a pleasant route among the trees, and on the sides are preserved the chapels of the Via Crucis of Canete, built in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; at the end of the Via Crucis, there is the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows, which dates back to 1766.
The route ends at the old mills (hamlet of San Barnaba).
On the banks of the artificial basin, there are still the remains of two mills that once exploited the power of a stream mainly to grind cereals. They should be totally recovered/reconstructed for educational-cultural purposes.
A visit to the church of Chiesa di S. Barnaba is highly recommended; it is located in the hamlet of the same name, consecrated for the first time towards the middle of the 12th century; in 1491, it was blessed again, dedicating it to the patron saint S. Barnaba. The current appearance dates back to a subsequent renovation in 1754. A visit to the Church of S. is also recommended.
Sebastiano, with its baroque front, is the main church of the municipality, dedicated to the patron saint; its origins date back to 1454, built as an oratory and underwent renovation and expansion interventions in the following centuries, in particular in 1731. Furthermore, a visit to the Church of the Immaculate Conception, dating back to 1641 and located in the hamlet of Giavera, is recommended.
Leg 1: Sasso del drago
Continuing on the state road that connects Piuro with Villa di Chiavenna, along the road, you come across a stone, the sàsc dél dràach, which supposedly contains the footprint of a dragon. Legend claims that an evil dragon lived there and was tricked into dying (he swallowed a caravan of salt and burst from drinking too much water). Today, there is also a very popular rock climbing gym on the boulder.
Leg 2: Strécc (frazione Ponteggia).
After the stop, the itinerary continues towards Ponteggia, one of the oldest hamlets, perhaps the original nucleus of the town. You can find rural buildings and some vegetable gardens; there are houses that date back to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and there are also renovated houses. The hamlet winds through narrow trattorias (strécc) between the houses.
Leg 3: Stua di Tonèllä
This building, probably dating back to the late Middle Ages, has a very particular structure because it rests on masonry pillars and was built with the wooden technique called “a bàlz” (elsewhere “càrden”). Perhaps in the past, it served as a warehouse for storing cereals.
Leg 4: Torchio di Ponteggia
Visit to the recently renovated press.
Leg 5: il Sasso del Quartin
An imposing erratic boulder abandoned by the glaciers.
The man, like marmots, do on the mountain pastures, dug underneath to create rooms useful for making wine (there is also an old press nearby, unfortunately in poor condition). Precisely in one of these caves, the notary Giovanni Andrea Maraffio had an inscription sculpted in 1698 which remained interrupted: “This world is a scene that…”. The indication of the curious date is 5698 from the creation of man.
Leg 6: Crotti di Motta
Very suggestive building and urban areas, set among the rocks, leaning against each other. They were environments intended for the maturation of wine, cheeses, and cured meats built at the foot of the mountain that originated them. Also, in this area, it is possible to stop for lunch; in fact, a modern sports center with an adjoining refreshment bar has recently been renovated.
Leg 7: Madonna della salute in the small hamlet of Chete
This Church was commissioned by local emigrants in Venice who, in 1716, wanted in their native town a reminder of the temple that the Venetian Senate had wanted to build in front of San Marco for the cessation of the plague in 1630. This small sanctuary, on November 21st of each year, has always attracted many faithful from all the villages of Valchiavenna, even on foot. The route ends at the old mills (hamlet of San Barnaba).

Petrorium, which means “Area of stones,” refers to the fact that its territory has the peculiarity of being very rocky. The first thing to see in Piuro is the Acqua Fraggia waterfall, partly visible from the road. Fed by the spring of the same name, which flows from Pizzo di Lago, at 3000 meters above sea level, in a point of the Alpine watershed from which rivers flow into the North Sea, the Black Sea, and the Mediterranean.
Along the same road that leads to the waterfalls you reach the Church of Sant’Abbondio, whose bell tower remained intact following the landslide that hit the town, resulting in its semi-abandonment. The church, however, was overwhelmed by the flood of the torrent in 1755 and was later rebuilt further upstream. The Piuro excavation museum is located in its sacristy. Opened in 1972, the museum showcases artifacts discovered during archaeological excavations (1960s and 1980s) of an old village buried by a landslide in 1618 soapstone objects, architectural elements, bolts, coins, weapons, armorer’s tools, leather, fragments of wooden furniture and even a skeleton recomposed in the attitude of protecting itself from the landslide.
In the internal room, some of the 53 soapstone pipes are exhibited, which probably belonged to the aqueduct of the garden of the Vertemate Franchi Palace near the collegiate church of San Cassiano.
Finally, you cannot miss a visit to Palazzo Vertemate Franchi, a Renaissance masterpiece immersed in an enchanting environment in the locality of Prosto di Piuro, just two kilometers from Chiavenna.
Built-in the second half of the 16th century by the brothers Guglielmo and Luigi Vertemate Franchi, it is the only building on the property that was saved from the landslide of 1618, which submerged the town with many of its inhabitants.

The main religious building is the Collegiate of St Lawrence, of which we have news starting from 973, even if it is assumed that the building already existed in the 5th century. Named a parish church in 1042, the structure has been remodeled several times over the centuries: the bell tower dates back to the seventeenth century, the portico and the frescoes that entirely decorate the internal walls are eighteenth-century, while the baptistery, with the valuable Romanesque baptismal font obtained from a soapstone monolith, dates back to the 12th century. At the collegiate church, he has. It is also home to one of the most important collections of religious goldsmithery in Europe, the Treasure Museum, which also preserves sacred vestments and objects dedicated to worship. The most valuable piece of the collection is the so-called “Peace of Chiavenna”: the rich cover of an 11th-century gospel book made of walnut wood covered with 25 finely decorated precious gold plates. One of the unique elements of the Chiavenna area is certainly represented by the CROTTI: natural ravines created between the enormous boulders that were once transported downstream by a landslide on which the town was later built. The “sorel” blows through the cracks between the caves, a current of air that maintains a constant temperature of around 8 degrees in every season, creating the ideal conditions for the aging of wine and the maturing of cured meats and cheeses. Between Chiavenna and the surrounding areas, there are around eighty crotti, a good part of which are intended for private use for the preservation of food and for sharing convivial moments and food and wine pleasures with friends and relatives. Some crotti have been converted into restaurants and serve typical dishes of traditional cuisine, while most of the others are open to the public only in the first two weekends of September, on the occasion of the Crotti Festival, which has taken place since 1956 (www.sagradeicrotti.it).In the town, the Moro Mulino, which is located in the historic artisan district of Bottonera and home to particularly prosperous activities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, is worth a visit, thanks to the canalization of the waters of the Mera River. The mill, founded in 1867, occupied a three-story building plus a basement and housed six millstones: a miller and his team of workers worked in three shifts, 24 hours a day. In 1965, the Moro family decided to transfer the company to a different location, and within a few years, the Chiavanna structure was definitively closed. The ancient pasta factory was then demolished; the mill, however, was restored to its former splendor thanks to the thousands of hours of work provided by the mountain community and the Valchiavenna Volunteers, elderly people, and friends; since 1997, it has been an important museum section of industrial archeology (for visits and information: Consortium for the tourist promotion of Valchiavenna, tel. 0343-37485). From the center of Chiavenna, you can access the Archaelogical Botalical Park Paradiso, part of the larger Marmitte dei Giganti nature reserve. Established in 1955, the Park covers the territory of two panoramic hills to the east of the town, Paradiso and Castellaccio, divided by a deep rift, the Curgia, surmounted by a walkway. In Roman times, the Caurgia was a quarry from which soapstone was extracted, and the traces left by the work are even more visible on its surfaces, while some of the paths were paved using botòn, the waste from turning soapstone. The numerous paths cross very interesting geological formations of fluvioglacial origin, such as erosion channels, potholes, and mountainous rocks.  The Park is home to numerous botanical species, including rare and exotic ones, often typical of much more southern latitudes, such as cedars or red oaks, which can be admired along a dedicated and captioned route. One of the itineraries leads to the Castellaccio fortress, allowing you to visit the ruins dating back to the period between the 9th and 11th centuries, the fifteenth-century walls, and the necropolis (for visits and info: ( www.valchiavenna.com). The path passes right over the site of the martyrdom of Sr. Maria Laura Mainetti, beatified on 6 June 2021. Born in 1939, she belonged to the Congregation of the Daughters of the Cross. As a teacher and educator of young people, she was a point of reference for many people. She was killed on June 6, 2000, at the hands of 3 underage girls who wanted to offer a sacrifice to Satan. These had attracted Sr. Maria Laura with the deception of a fake pregnancy caused by rape. A request for help, which she did not shy away from despite  the hour being late. Lured into a path, she was hit with a stone and then ended up with 19 stab wounds. The girls, during the interrogations, testified that the nun, while being hit, was now kneeling on the ground, like Jesus, asking God to forgive his murderers.