Cascina San Martino, from the Holy Trinity Church

Access

From Biella take the Valle Cervo road, direction Tollegno - Miagliano. When you reach Miagliano, cross the whole village to the north, passing in front of the church, and continue for about one km. Past the hamlet of Titin, on the right is the Trinity Bridge leading to the church of the same name, which is also served by a wooden footbridge. Continue a hundred metres beyond the bridge, keeping to the orographic right of the Cervo stream, and park on the right. Walk back to visit the church area. The complex is picturesque, recently restored, and is built on a small island between the Cervo and Morezza streams, over which there is an old stone bridge. The church is octagonal in shape, and was erected in 1748 around a 14th-century hexagonal shrine, of which the apse semi-dome and some 15th-century frescoes remain; the wooden altar was carved in 1716 by Carlo Gaspare Serpentiero. Both the church and the hamlets we are going to visit belong to the municipality of Sagliano Micca, the birthplace of Pietro Micca. Sagliano is the group of houses on the orographic left of the stag, high up on the terrace sloping down towards the stream.

How to get there with GMaps

Introduction

This itinerary takes us along the ancient mule-tracks that were once the only means of connection between the village of Sagliano Micca and its hamlets; they are still well-maintained today, and were also used by those who descended to go to work at the Poma cotton mill, the largest in the area, which at the beginning of the 20th century, with its three factories at Miagliano, Andorno, and Polla, employed hundreds of people, or at the hat factory at Sagliano, or at the Gallo Wool Mill.

The buildings now house different activities, but the hat factory remains, still producing felt hats (suitably tanned rabbit skin) exported to the United States and Israel. One of the two mule tracks, the one that climbs up to Case Code (agritourism), is also the devotional route for processions to Oropa from several villages in the Cervo Valley.

Description

Leaving the car, go back between the two bridges, i.e. between the wooden footbridge and the car bridge; more or less halfway up, in front of the Trinity complex (550m), on the orographic right-hand side, begins our mule track, marked , with Oropa written on a stone. We climb gently in twists and turns, through the beautiful chestnut wood, until we come to a dirt track serving a farmhouse; the dirt track becomes a small steep asphalt ribbon; at the end of the climb, signposts indicate the various possibilities: we follow the dirt track to the right, for Oneglie-Cascina San Martino. The dirt track climbs at times gently, at times more steeply, in places even partially asphalted, passing several renovated farmsteads, leaving a barking dog breeding farm to the left. Continue until the junction with another dirt road, which we leave to our left, continuing on the asphalt ribbon, until the next fork and this time we climb to the left. After a few hairpin bends and a few farmsteads, the road climbs steeply to above the trees, and in front of us is a panorama of the mountains at the bottom of the valley, above Piedicavallo (pe' d' co' ad la val, in the Biellese dialect "co' " means corner, even of a handkerchief...), the Cucco, high up on the left, and on the other side of the Cervo valley, the Sulìa band, with its villages nestling along the beech woods: Rialmosso, Oriomosso, and the hamlets. Climb a couple more hairpin bends and then with a long diagonal stretch reach the Cascina San Martino, recognisable because on the right it has an area covered by a roof resting on pillars (1,087 m, about an hour and three quarters). Return: return to the road taken uphill as far as the first crossroads and continue left for a few hundred metres, until you come to the yellow GtB sign on the right, at a bend, which must be followed as far as Oneglie; the path passes through a beautiful chestnut wood, then among birch trees, then over a meadowy hump, leaving a pine forest on the left; Walk along the hump to the end, the trail marker is to the left of a pole supporting electric cables; having reached the houses of the hamlet, the trail descends to the right of the hump and with a little zigzagging reaches the asphalt (water). Take a left, until you find a panel with signposts after about forty metres. Opposite, beyond the small parking area, there is a paved mule-track that descends, passes in front of what used to be the school of Oneglie, passes behind the small church to the end of the meadow and then descends to the right, behind a farmstead, zig zags and reaches a small chapel dedicated to the Madonna d'Oropa; continue quietly along the mule-track until it becomes a dirt road, follow it to the road below and from here to the car (about 45 minutes).