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Similar to Canate and Lavazzuoli, the small hamlet of Arena is abandoned. The lower group of houses, Lower Arena, can be reached from Favale of Malvaro by a small, not asphalted, motor road (orange in the map; driving in a standard car is possible, depending on the weather, but 4-wheel drive is recommended). The road exists because some local farmers and their families still frequent their home village to grow vegetables; thanks to their care, some of the houses are in a good state of maintenance. The other houses are empty and deserted, with the doors open to the abandonment. Almost entirely ravaged, it is the attractive chapel, build in stone and ancient slate. A brief pathway climbs behind the church and into the wood, it overcomes the brook and, after a short slope, leads to the group of houses that once was Higher Arena, and, by now, it is a bunch of ruins, utterly destroyed and covered by the vegetation (note that all pictures in this page were taken in Lower Arena). In old times, Arena was famous for the great rural parties which took place on the occasion of the passage of the livestock, because there the herdsmen used to make a stop during the trip of transfer from the bottom of the valley to the high mountain pastures. Pursuing the steep pathway toward the mountain ridge, one can reach Arena's Pass along the Alta Via dei Monti Liguri ('High Route of Ligurian Mountains', an important trekking trail).
Manor house | Fireplace | Houses | The church | Church, interior |