Foreste Sacre – Stop 0: Marradi -Lago Ponte

From the Marradi’s old town you pass under an arch and starting to rise the dorsal (o ridge) in front of the “Badia del Borgo”. The landscape is the typical of Romagna Appennines: narrow valleys between branched ridges, chestnut trees, coppice wood, ruins of houses and abandoned crops. The path winds trough the Acerreta valley, where the woods thicken and goes down to the suggestive hermitage of Gamogna, founded by San Pier Damiani in the mid of 11th century. The complex has been recently renovated and includes a beautiful Romanesque church, with a bell gable and a large building developed around the cloister. From the small cemetery you go down to the valley floor, touching the Ponte della Valle and going up the opposite side up to the buildings of Trebbana, , another ancient monastic center of which remains the church that we see today in eighteenth-century forms; a few minutes' walk away is one of the largest oaks in Romagna. Once you reach the crest between the Acerreta and Tramazzo valleys, head south, bypassing Mount Caibano and touching Mount del Cerro. Shortly after, you descend into the Tramazzo valley, passing the road that climbs to the hill of the same name and quickly reaching the shores of Lago di Ponte, a small artificial basin set in a natural setting dominated by woods and at the extreme northern edge of the National Park.