San Rocco is a fraction of 233 inhabitants located in the hilly area of ​​Camogli, south of the city of Golfo Paradiso, west of the promontory of Mount Portofino.

It is located at 221 m above sea level and is about 4.5 km from the municipal capital.

The element characterizing the landscape of this side of Mount Portofino facing the Golfo Paradiso and emerging architecture within the core of houses making up the hamlet is the Parish Church of San Rocco. Built in 1863 on the site of a pre-existing 15th-century chapel, already dedicated to the saint of Montpellier, it houses a monumental marble cornice by Bernardo Schiaffino which contains the painting Madonna della Salute by Carlo Dolci. Together with the Church of San Rocco, whose dedication to the Saint seems to date back to the plague of 1384, we remember the Romanesque Church of San Nicolò di Capodimonte.

Founded, according to tradition, in the twelfth century by the monks of San Rufo near an already present chapel of San Romolo from 345, abandoned since the fifteenth century for frequent pirate raids and transformed into a civilian home after the Napoleonic edict, it was reopened again to religious worship since 1870. Among the traces of frescoes there is the representation of a Madonna protecting a boat, the Stella Maris, taken from the mosaic of Punta Chiappa and the object of veneration during the religious holidays of the same name.

Monuments and scenic spots, we find them in perfect fusion in the square of the Church of San Rocco, from which you can enjoy a spectacular view of the Golfo Paradiso, Genoa and part of the Riviera di Ponente up to the Maritime Alps. But the square is also the center of the nucleus of the village which developed mainly near the Church and along the only road artery, as well as the node point from which three ancient pedestrian paths branch off: the first allows you to reach the center of Camogli along the Gentile stream; the second, beside the church and close to the sea, reaches the nucleus of the village called Mortola, to continue up to the Batteries, or, going down before Mortola, it connects San Rocco to the underlying and ancient church of San Nicolò di Capodimonte continuing up to the cliff of Punta Chiappa ; the third, uphill, crosses the olive groves and the strips of the Galletti inhabited area, with the presence of the characteristic painted niches that retrace the stages of the Via Crucis, and after passing the small altar of the Sacred Heart, the mule track enters the dense forest of chestnuts to get to Portofino Vetta, crossroads of other paths for as many destinations within the Portofino Park. Among the various sites of historical and landscape interest: the bay of San Fruttuoso with the homonymous Abbey, 10th century Benedictine monastery and the Christ of the abyss; the Doria tower, a defensive structure from the second half of the 16th century; the remains of bunkers built during the Second World War to defend the territory; the suggestive Cala dell'Oro, a small bay untouched by rich vegetation and protected seabed; the Tonnarella, an authentic maritime tradition of Camogli dating back at least to the early 17th century.

 

 

 

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