The route called the “Cammino dei Fossili” is 93 km long and reaches as a whole 17 Municipalities. It is an itinerary of medium and low difficulty levels, so it is suitable both for hiking and biking tours, that can affect the whole route or only a part of it.

In this route, that goes through the nord-western area of the Province of Asti , from the so-called “Terre dei Santi” to the “Colline del Romanico”, three different themes mix together, distinguishing deeply the Lower Monferrato region: the architectural beauties, with the presence of about 20 Romanesque churches, located in this territory; the interest of devotional nature, affected to the places where important figures of Christianity, also famous internationally, born and worked, such as Saint Giovanni Bosco; the naturalistic and paleontologic heritage, represented by untouched wooded areas and a very high concentration of fossils.

A macrocosm that this itinerary allows the hikers to observe “with a magnifying glass”, revealing to the tourist many microcosms, each of them made of unique stories, attractions and curiosities.

Fossils are the fil rouge connecting the places of this route. Finds of a great scientific value, collected and exhibited largely in the Paleontologic Museum of Asti’s territory, set up in Michelerio Palace in Asti; fossils that you can also come across walking in the local woods.

The presence of fossils here is related to the Pliocene, the last period of the Tertiary Era, started about 5 and a half million years ago. In that time the mountain system of Italy already existed, but not valleys, still submerged. In the North of Italy, the whole zone of the Po Valley, with the Monferrato Hills, Lower Langhe Hills and Roero Hills, was covered by the Adriatic sea; not finding barriers, that sea enlarged forming a big cove, called “Padano Sea”, up to “wet the Alps’ feet”. Tropical, shallow and hot water, populated by various forms of life: sponges, sea urchins, corals, sea stars and some hundreds of kinds of mollusks, with their beautiful shells. Moreover dolphins, sharks, whose we keep teeth, very sharp, and fin whales, that left in fields and vineyards their gigantic bones.  

But the “Terre dei Santi” also tell the “sequel” of this history, which was the passage from the sea environment to the savannah, happened about 1,8 million years ago. In this period, called “Villafranchiano” from Villafranca d’Asti, the place where many finds of land animals were discovered, there was a continuous regression of the sea; at the same time, continental sediments were depositing and the sea bottom emerged. Mastodons, rhinos, gigantic deers, buffaloes and many other kinds of animals started to populate the dry land, where willows, oaks, beech trees, hornbeams and magnolias were growing.

It was only 1880 when, in the zone of Dusino San Michele, a big skeleton of a prehistoric Rhino was discovered; later, many other finds followed, both from the ancient sea and dry land, among the near villages of Roatto, Cortandone and Capriglio.

A really surprising past… and you need just a mountain bike and boots to discover it.