Quarona – San Giovanni al Monte – Monte Tucri

A pleasant walk along an elegant cobbled mule track will tell you the story of “Blessed Panacea,” a local legend, through several small chapels with paintings by Lino Tosi depicting highlights of the Blessed’s life. The cult for the Valsesian shepherdess is deeply felt by the community, and is remembered every year through various initiatives and events of the tradition.

The walk begins in the village of Quarona, 406m, more precisely near the Chapel of the Blessed Panacea located in via Lanzio. One almost immediately takes the comfortable mule track and the climb proceeds in hairpin bends passing two votive pillars, arriving in about twenty minutes at the Church of San Giovanni al Monte, a national monument. Historian Ottone believes it is one of the oldest churches in the Novarese area. Studies carried out during restoration in 1952 showed that the oldest part of the church rests on the remains of a Roman construction, as the tombs that were discovered would suggest. The churchyard until about 1600 served as the cemetery of the religious communities of Quarona, Cavaglia, Breia, Cadarafagno, and Castagnea. On the terrace in front of the church, on the other hand, one can admire the knotty, centuries-old hornbeam trees.

The mule track climbs further past the church and after passing several small chapels reaches the Church of the Beata al Monte, 616m, erected on the site of the martyrdom of the shepherdess Panacea.

On the side of the church continues the path that steeply reaches the southern ridge of the summit of Mount Tucri, 791m, characterized by dense vegetation.

Just before the summit, climbing past the Church of the Beata al Monte, one reaches instead a vantage point that acts as a balcony over the town of Quarona, the surrounding mountains and most of Lower Valsesia.