A zero-kilometre trip in the Ligurian hinterland: a day in Ne amid nature, history and good food

The story

One of the five Italian municipalities with the shortest name, made up of just two letters, is the fourth largest municipality in the province of Genoa: this peculiarity of Ne is only one of the features that make it a “small big town”. To discover it, you only need to travel a few kilometres from the Ligurian Riviera di Levante into the hinterland of Chiavari and Lavagna. There, where the waters of the Graveglia stream flow into the Entella river, lies the Valgraveglia, a true hikers' paradise that is part of the Aveto Regional Nature Park. Whether you go around on foot, by mountain bike or on horseback, here you immerse yourself in a breathtaking landscape, and there are certain peaks from which you can admire the snow-capped Alps on one side and the sea on the other. During our trip we visit several hamlets that offer a genuine medieval itinerary through the charming villages.

Between Nascio and Castagna we admire the beautiful bridge over the Rio Novelli, and at Zerli the ruins of the Castle Tower of Roccamaggiore, built by the Fieschi of Lavagna. It is on arriving in the hamlet of Chiesanuova that we discover the most significant historical fact: Giuseppe Garibaldi's grandfather, Angelo, was born in this very place and was baptised in the church of San Biagio in 1741. At the time the hamlet itself was called Garibaldo, and in Ne the surname Garibaldi is still among the most common. We are even lucky enough to meet Mrs Anna Garibaldi, a teacher and the driving force behind Ne's School and Civic Library, the leading library among the innovative libraries of the Mandillo Network.

The credit for discovering the library, a stimulating, unusual, colourful and fun space, goes to the children who are with us: as we drive through the hamlet of Conscenti, the municipal seat, named after the famous confluence of the river and the stream, they notice a large group of very friendly scarecrows beside the road. Mrs Garibaldi will explain to us that they were created by the children of Ne for a competition, children who also look after another jewel of the town: the “Orto in condotta”, a real spiral-shaped vegetable garden where the little ones can learn to grow the area's native vegetables and, consequently, to eat well.

The library is named after another figure important to Ne's culture: Hugo Plomteux, a noted Belgian linguist and dialectologist born in 1939 and who died at just 41, who, having fallen in love with this place, had moved to Ne to study the local dialect and the traditions of peasant life, to which he dedicated several works. In the hamlets immersed in unspoilt nature there are also numerous beautiful churches, such as the parish church of Saints Cipriano and Giustina at Sambuceto, commissioned by the Benedictine monks, the seventeenth-century church of San Martino at Caminata, or the church of Sant'Apollinare, in existence since the year 1000 in the hamlet of Reppia.

If this beautiful territory is a mine of treasures, that is also meant in the literal sense of the word: here in fact is the Gambatesa Mine, the largest manganese mine in Europe, turned into a museum, which can be visited equipped with helmets and little yellow coats, descending into the bowels of the earth on the miners' little train, made up of ore wagons modified to carry people.

After roaming far and wide across the fascinating territory of Ne, a bit of hunger leads us to the hamlet of Arzeno, which we easily reach, always following the SS26 until we find, on the right, the handsome orange house that is home to Agriturismo Chiara. The building faces the road close to a small but convenient car park and a picnic area with wooden benches and a tourist sign with a fun map of Ne showing the routes of cultural interest, seasoned with images of the ever-present Garibaldi, but also of a friendly wild boar or two. Welcoming us with great kindness are the owner Chiara and her husband Christian, who run the business together with Eugenia, Chiara's cousin as well as the owner of a biscuit factory in the town.

We take our seats in the large, bright dining room, easily accessible for disabled people too and furnished with elegance and taste, in a style that on one hand echoes tradition and on the other looks towards art, thanks to Christian's very interesting photographs on the walls. “With us, art runs in the family; my mother was an art teacher,” Chiara confides, herself an artist of flavours, superb at creating emotions at the table with her specialities that showcase the area's dishes but also intrigue anyone who wants to try something new. One of the secrets of her kitchen's success is the quality of the zero-kilometre ingredients, perfect also for creating vegetarian and vegan dishes, most of them grown directly by the family. “We opened our farm thirteen years ago, while the agriturismo came about seven years ago.

As well as at our restaurant's tables, our dishes can also be enjoyed thanks to the catering service, with which we manage to cover just about the whole Tigullio area. We grow vegetables, potatoes, maize and wheat, and we raise poultry. We use our farm products directly in the kitchen, but also to make preserves, seasonal vegetable compotes and jams,” Chiara tells us as we begin to taste the first courses. We start with a nice plate of mixed cured meats accompanied by cuculli, that is, chickpea-flour fritters and chestnut-flour fritters. We also taste a vegetable roll with tomato sauce, and then a revisited Ligurian speciality that turns from a seafood dish into a perfect inland dish: cappon magro with white meats.

Tradition comes alive again in its original form in the testaieu, which are similar to very particular piadine, cooked in the so-called testetti, that is, shards of pottery heated over the embers and stacked in a little tower with the dough of flour, water and a little salt inside them. Once cooked, the testaieu are dressed with pesto or with oil and parmesan. After this rich starter we move on to first courses based on fresh homemade pasta, as well as all the varieties of bread that Chiara bakes every day. Our group splits between the two first courses available: ravioli with herbs dressed with tuccu, as per Ligurian tradition, and gnocchi with mushrooms from the dense surrounding woods. Depending on the season, we can also find ravioli filled with pumpkin, mushrooms or pesto: it always changes a little, offering one more reason each time to reach the hamlet of Arzeno.

We wash down these delights with local wines, mainly white or grey Pinot from a winery in Chiavari. Among the main courses we always have two choices: rabbit Ligurian-style with olives and pine nuts, prepared with meat from the family farm, and cima alla ligure offered in a more rustic, greener, more mountain-style version. Another main course often offered is asado, a speciality very widespread in the hinterland of the Ligurian Levante, since a great many families have relatives who emigrated to Argentina. Finally, we have no choice but to give in to the sweet temptations of the homemade desserts, including caramel-baked pear, peach with amaretti, and the tasty sciumette, which are cups of custard with meringue cooked in milk, in practice very similar to the French île flottante.

We return to the city enriched by a lovely experience that we will try to repeat soon, and before leaving we buy a few little jars of Chiara's delicious preserves. When we taste them at home, it will be a bit like reliving in flavours our trip in this fascinating territory.