サンジョルジョピアセンティーノの洞窟・トップ15

Definitely worth it, there is a lot to explore, plan about 2 hours

The castle was born as a medieval fortification in the Vezzeno Valley. The manor, surrounded by Guelph battlements, is defended by towers, the entrance one with a drawbridge and the mighty central keep. The Castle of Gropparello, known in ancient times as "Rocca di Cagnano", is a characteristic example of a medieval fortification built to defend the access route to a valley, conceived as a true eagle's nest overlooking the cliff, and therefore absolutely unassailable .. The oldest document known so far about Gropparello dates back to the year 810, and is the deed with which the emperor Charlemagne granted the place as a fief to the then bishop of Piacenza Giuliano II.

The castle, mentioned in a sale deed of 1296, was built on a hill on the left bank of the Trebbia river, in front of Rivergaro, to control access to the valley together with the castles of Rivalta, Montechiaro and Rivergaro, located on the opposite bank. The castle has a rectangular plan with an internal courtyard and four cylindrical corner towers. Made of stones and pebbles from Trebbia, it is composed of three buildings and a single curtain wall, to the south, modified at the end of the 17th century with the addition of battlements and windows. The south-west corner tower has large Renaissance-style arched openings.

Rivalta Castle is one of the very few European examples of manors surrounded by an ancient village that has largely remained intact today.

Rivalta Castle is one of the very few European examples of manors surrounded by an ancient village that has largely remained intact today. Mentioned in documents as early as 1048, it is a sumptuous noble residence, surrounded by a magnificent park. The castle shows a quadrangular planimetric development and is characterized by a singular fifteenth-century cylindrical tower, which ends with the unmistakable small tower

Palazzo Farnese, built in the second half of the 1500s under the direction of the architect Jacopo Barozzi, known as Vignola. After various events, this imposing building - which hosted many homeless people during the Second World War - is now home to the City's Civic Museums. Inside, the Madonna adoring the Child with the infant Saint John (known as Botticelli's Tondo) in the Pinacoteca stand out; the Sala dei Fasti Farnesiani, the room that more than any other exalts the Farnese family through pictorial representations; the curious Carriage Museum, one of the most prestigious in Italy on the subject; and the Archaeological Museum of the city and the territory which among its collections houses the famous Liver of Piacenza, an Etruscan find linked to the practices of the haruspic priests.

Rivalta Castle Among the castles in Italy that host the Dutch royal family, Rivalta Castle is where Princess Margaret of England also stayed. It is located in Emilia and is among the most beautiful tourist itineraries in Val Trebbia, a motorcyclist's paradise. You can see it on the right of state road 45, when before Rivergaro you start to climb towards Bobbio and Mount Penice and then dive towards Genoa and the sea. Today, thanks to the recovery and enhancement of the entire complex, the Rivalta Castle is a sumptuous residence. Surrounded today by a thick tree-lined garden, a sumptuous noble residence often chosen by the royals of England for a quiet, aristocratic holiday, the Rivalta Castle was, in times gone by, one of the most important military bastions of western Emilia.

Rivalta Castle is a large fortified complex overlooking the Trebbia. Definitely worth a visit as well as the streets that surround it.