Camminando nel Presepe
From 8 December to Epiphany, the hamlets of Rosignano wear an open-air Nativity: a walking trail of eighty-odd painted panels strung along the lanes of Colma and Garriano, best seen lit up after dark.
Why it's special
It's a whole-village nativity you walk through rather than look at — painted panels of the Nativity and Christmas made over the years by local artists, amateurs and schoolchildren alike, following the hillside roads between the frazioni. After sunset the works are illuminated, and the trail through the vineyards becomes the point of the evening.
Programme · 2025
The 21st edition of the painted Nativity trail through Rosignano's hamlets. A path of 80+ artistic panels on Nativity and Christmas themes, strung along the lanes of Colma, Roveto, Cappelletta and Garriano Works created over the years by established and amateur artists and by local schoolchildren Open throughout the Christmas holidays; the illuminated panels are best seen after dark
- The path runs through the frazioni of Colma, Roveto, Cappelletta and Garriano, not the village centre — drive or walk out to the hamlets.
- Go at dusk or after dark: the panels are illuminated and that's when the trail is at its most atmospheric.
- Dress for a cold hillside walk.
- It stays up right through the holidays to Epiphany.
Every December Rosignano Monferrato turns its outlying hamlets into a Nativity you walk through. Camminando nel Presepe is a painted trail: more than eighty panels on the theme of the Nativity and Christmas, hung along the lanes that thread the frazioni of Colma, Roveto, Cappelletta and Garriano. Some are the work of established artists, some of amateurs, and many were made by children and teenagers from the local schools — added to, year on year, since the mid-2000s.
You follow the road between the hills, panel to panel. It's an outdoor thing, and the best time is after sunset, when the works are lit and the vineyard slopes go dark around them. The path stays up through the whole holiday, from 8 December to Epiphany, organised by the Associazione Amis d'la Curma.
Come dressed for a cold walk in the country — this isn't a piazza market but a trail across the hamlets — and check the comune's page for the year's exact opening. The route, and the idea, don't change.