Top 5 Caves around Villar Focchiardo

Natural cavity in the fractures of serpentinite, called a "cave" with some optimistic - but interesting - character.

Beautiful sanctuary, too bad it was located in a context in which it loses due to the structures built around it

A few minutes' detour from the main path leads to an ancient millstone quarry. There are some iron steps planted in the rock to overcome and after a short climb over rubble you enter the quarry where you can see some millstones carved into the rock, but no longer finished.

Ancient stone quarry, cliff with some climbing routes

Sanctuary and via Crucis in Forno di Coazze, continuing on you arrive at Colletto del Forno

The Virgin Mary depicted and venerated here is that of Lourdes. This well-known Marian pilgrimage site is located in the French Pyrenees and is visited by a large number of people every year, including many sick people hoping for healing. The devotional image of the Mother of God has spread widely, not only in France, and believers have built Lourdes chapels and grottos everywhere. The ecclesiastical memorial day "Our Lady of Lourdes" is on February 11th, this is the anniversary of the apparition of Mary (1858), when the Mother of God appeared to the 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous in a rock grotto not far from Lourdes. Bernadette later became a nun and died at the age of only 35. On December 8 (the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary) 1933, she was canonized by Pope Pius XI. The commemoration of the Lourdes Madonna is also World Day of the Sick.

The "pera furà" is an ancient quarry of millstones, obtained in a rocky wall clearly visible from the locality Chiampano, which in turn rises just above another even more evident granite formation overlooking Borgone, where for years there has been a cliff of climbing. To reach the quarry, starting from the car park of the climbing wall, one follows the two existing paths on either side of the cliff, with both of them reaching Chiampano, while with the path on the right access is direct, with the one on the left it is necessary, once in the hamlet, turn right onto the main street thus reaching the signs for pera furà. Access to the quarry is carried out with a short stretch of aided path (metal pegs driven into the rock) and a stretch of path where you need to be careful not to slip. In five minutes you arrive at the cave, on the walls of which the marks left by the quarrymen and some millstones, well hewn, still set in the rock and never completed again, are clearly visible. continuing the climb towards Roccabruna (or Pietrabruna) you arrive, after a steep stretch of path, on the top of the "pear", with an exceptional view over the Susa valley. The hamlet, not far away, is abandoned. In the basements are found old vats, remains of barrels and some presses, witnesses of an ancient exploitation of the surrounding land as vineyards, where the remains of dry stone wall terraces are found (the toponym "vigne del rocco" is not chosen at random .. ..)

Upstream of the ford on the Rocciamelone stream, on the left orographic side, you can see two caves, called “Voute”, the result of erosive phenomena (area of geological interest) which hosted seasonal settlements of Neolithic shepherds. Source: https://www.parchialpicozie.it/page/view/sentiero-delle-voute/