On Sept. 24, we had a day off from touring around so Mark and I decided to explore the Castle ruins and old church here in Benabbio. The ruins and the church (Chiesa di S. Michele) date back to before 1200. The walk to reach these structure was quite steep and it was surprising to see how many more houses (and cars) were up that high. The last part of the climb to the site was a well marked dirt road and then path.
The site of the church (which has been rebuilt many times over its history) once held cholera victims from the mid 1800. Benabbio had an epidemic the summer and fall of 1855 and 46 of the 900 villagers died from the disease. Archaeologists excavated the site starting in 2007 and learned a lot about the cholera epidemic of that time.
Crimson Kathryn and her crew 