From San Piero in Bagno this route of the Paths of the river Savio, perfect for your four legged friend, crosses the valleys of Pietrapazza and Rio Salso.
It is an entirely marked route, lasting about 4 hours (excluding any stops), which reaches the border of the Parco delle Foreste Casentinesi, Monte Falterona e Campigna.
Upon returning to San Piero in Bagno you can quickly reach Bagno di Romagna to end the day with a relaxing break at the spa and a dinner based on typical local products.
From San Piero in Bagno we can reach Via Verdi, which from Piazza Allende reaches as far as the nineteenth-century stone bridge over the Fosso di Paganico.
We pass it and take the mule track on the left that climbs to the side of the municipal road, with long paved sections, which leads to the hamlet of Paganico and Rio Salso.
In a short time we reach the inhabited farms of Raggio di Sotto and Raggio di Sopra, where the mule track is crossed by the road that goes up from San Piero.
We follow the municipal road on the left and - ignoring the deviation that leads to Paganico on the left – we follow it as far as Montepiano.
Once you reach an open space, take a long dirt road on the left closed by a bar: always keeping to the ridge and ignoring the deviations on the left, the road leads to Monte Castelluccio, bypasses Monte Carpano and shortly after, joins the Pietrapazza mule track that leads from Bagno di Romagna into the valley of the river Bidente Piccolo.
After a few dozen meters, on the right, the mule track comes out on the Passo di Monte Carpano, crossing the forest track that comes from the Mandrioli road (on the left) and descends to the charming abandoned village of Pietrapazza. We follow this dirt road on the right to come out on the side of the church of S. Eufemia in Pietrapazza, still consecrated.
After carefully passing a barrier, we continue to descend along the track that runs along the right bank of the Bidente river. Then, where the valley opens and widens, you can admire the Ponte Bottega, a stone bridge that crosses the Bidente on the left.
We continue towards Ponte del Faggio, where we can take advantage of an equipped rest area, to let our four-legged travel companion rest briefly. From here we can reach Strabatenza.
To get to Strabatenza you have to make a small detour from the main route, passing through the Trappisa di Sotto refuge.
In Strabatenza, a village populated until the 1960s and now uninhabited, you can still admire the church of San Donato, while a little above there is the monument to the partisans of the VIII Garibaldi Brigade, the old school in a state of neglect, and some ruins.
Proceeding a few hundred meters further, you will come across the ancient cemetery. From here you can retrace your steps towards Ponte del Faggio.
We then take the mule track that leads to Rio Salso: it starts right next to Ca' di Veroli and climbs up the ditch of the same name, which it then crosses with a stone bridge (the Riacci) to reach, with a series of hairpin bends, the hamlet of Rio Salso, situated up a climb on a hillock.
In the place, abandoned for years, stands the "Rio Salso" hotel, now closed, next to which a long dirt road climbs up to Passo Monte Piano.
However, we recommend that you take the old mule track that passes next to the dilapidated church and climbs steeply up to the ridge, and gently slopes up to the square, from where we descend back to San Piero in Bagno, along the road we took in the morning.
