It is proposed to move in the morning to have time to visit Bobbio and allow pilgrims to participate in the Holy Mass on Sunday at the Abbey of San Colombano (10.00 am) or the Cathedral (10.00 am). 11.15).
The route starts from Mezzano behind the Albergo Ristorante Ranella, along the Vecchia Strada di Moione, and continues along the Centomerli-Degara road. The asphalt soon gives way to an uphill mule track, which you follow until you reach, after about 250 m, a first crossroads where you keep left and, after another 300 m, a second crossroads, where you retake the road on the left. Continue for another 700 m until you find the asphalt again on the Centomerli road, which you then follow, turning right until you cross, about 2 km from the start, the Centomerli hamlet, originally a monastic cell dedicated to Saint-Omer. Continuing for about 1.5 km, you pass the small town of Degara and proceed straight until you join the Strada di Lagobisione.
The road you take on the left leads in about 4 km of constant light descent to Bobbio. The route is very peaceful and quiet, and the passage of any vehicle is rare. The thick bush alternates with vast green meadows dotted with farmhouses, which open the horizon onto the surrounding landscape. The panorama also embraces the mountains that rise on the other side of the valley and the river that flows at its bottom. Continuing to descend, you can glimpse the first houses of Bobbio in the distance.
At the end of the road, turning right, you enter the long avenue that leads slightly uphill to the destination. After passing the Basilica of the Madonna dell’Aiuto on the left and the hospital on the right, you arrive in Piazza San Francesco and cross it straight on, glimpsing on the left, beyond the public garden, the building of the fourteenth-century Franciscan convent. Passing next to the fountain located in the center of the square, you then enter the Porta Nuova district, which you follow for about a hundred meters until you turn into the first street on the right, the narrow and short Via del Pozzo, beyond which you will find the elegant colonnade that closes the back of the Columban abbey.
From this side of the complex, which opens onto the garden of Piazza Santa Fara, you can access the cloister and the various museums surrounding it: Abbey Museum, City Museum, and Museum of the Twentieth Century, with the rich Mazzolini pictorial collection. The main entrance is on the opposite side, in the square dedicated to the Saint, which can also be reached from the outside by passing along the side of the church.
The visit can only end inside the Basilica, in the crypt, with the Renaissance sarcophagus of the tomb of San Colombano in the center, a destination for uninterrupted pilgrimages through the centuries. In support of the tomb, there are also critical artistic testimonies, such as the Lombard sepulchral slabs of the abbots Attala and Bertulfo, successors of Colombano, on the walls following the altar, or the valuable medieval wrought iron gate that encloses one of the sides of the crypt, or even the extensive 12th-century floor mosaic, with scenes of the Crusades, which precedes the entrance staircase.