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This part of the Ligurian Riviera offers visitors a cultural heritage of all respect.
VILLANOVA
3 km away from Garlenda you can visit the medieval village of Villanova d'Albenga, built by the City of Albenga in 1250 as a fortified village at the confluence of rivers Lerrone and Arroscia. It was called the "Nova Villa of Albenga". The citadel still preserves the polygonal walls and 10 towers, positioned at the corners of the town. The center is crossed by numerous "carruggi" typical narrow streets of Ligurian towns and preserves a famous medieval well used for drinking water until the '30s. There are numerous Romanesque and Baroque churches to visit, including the Renaissance church of Santa Maria del Soccorso, known as "La Rotonda", the Church of Santo Stefano in Cavatorio with Romanesque bell tower of the twelfth century, a porch with capitals and frescoes of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and the baroque Church of Our Lady of Grace.
ALBENGA
A few minutes by car or by bus serving easily the area, you can reach Albenga, one of the Roman cities of the Ligurian Riviera that has the best-preserved historic center of western Liguria. The city mantains a Roman map and preserves a beautiful historical centre with medieval houses and the famous towers.
Albenga was, over the centuries, a Roman municipality, capital of the Marca Arduinica, Episcopalian and a free city. The heart of the city is the Piazza San Michele, the hub for centuries of religious and civic life of the city. From this square there are different cultural attractions offered to the tourists: the Town Hall, the Cathedral of St. Michael, which contains a fourteenth-century bell tower of considerable interest, the Baptistery, among the most important early Christian monuments in northern Italy, and many museums as Oddo Palace, which houses a permanent exhibition of ancient glass (including the famous "blue plate", unique in the world), but also the Ingauno Museum that collects testimonies of the Roman and Byzantine periods, the Naval Museum with Roman findings gathered from a Roman cargo ship in the first century BC wrecked in the area and the Diocesan Museum of Sacred Art.
There are other historical sites of cultural interest accessible by day trips, for example
LAIGUEGLIA
which is one of the most known cities of the coast and it's home to a famous jazz festival.
FINALE LIGURE
with its historic centre, counted among the most beautiful in Italy.
CERVO LIGURE
summer theater of one of the most famous festival of chamber music and place which preserves a unique atmosphere.
Abd many inland villages such as
PIEVE DI TECO
with its medieval arcades
ORTOVERO and RANZO
almost unknown pearls which preserve a wealth of great artistic value.
In a one-day tripyou can visit GENOVA, with its museums and many historical monuments, but also PORTOFINO and the CINQUE TERRE on the east coast, a UNESCO World Heritage Site of rare beauty.
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