Saint Luigi Guanella Path stage Traona - Nuova Olionio

The route, which crosses the provinces of Sondrio and Como through the places where Saint Guanella worked, also extends for a large part along the foothill belt of the Costiera dei Cèch. In Traona the route starts from the complex of the former convent of S. Francesco, an eighteenth-century building that Guanella converted in 1880 into an elementary school for poor boys. Also in Traona, a stop is the Parish Church of S. Alessandro, where the Saint was coadjutor, then continuing westward through Piussogno, Mantello, and Dubino. Then you reach Nuova Olonio, a settlement founded by Guanella in 1900 together with a group of good sons by reclaiming the marshy area where the ancient Roman Olonio stood. Here the Saint established an elementary school and a provisional church, which in 1904 was rebuilt in stone and is now the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Labour. From Nuova Olonio, you move to nearby Pian di Spagna, where a circular meditative path is accompanied by phrases taken from Guanellian pedagogy.