IL MOLINETTO - "THE LITTLE MILL"

is located in the countryside of Liguria, province of Imperia, on the Italian Riviera of Flowers in the Prino Valley, 9 km from the sea (15 minutes by car).

It is a very old house of natural stone masonry, formerly a water-powered small olive mill, today developed on 2 levels as a residential house and partly overgrown with wisteria.

The house stands at the narrowest point of the valley at the entrance to the mountains (which rise from here to 1,100 m) uhe mill is situated directly on the Prino stream, connected to the road by a long private footbridge. An attraction of the place is that the mill and the property are situated about 300 m before the village of Molini di Prelà, in a natural setting, closely screened from the road by large trees. Beyond the road is a steep rock face.

The terrain on this side of the stream by the house rises more gently - the typical Ligurian landscape of natural stone walls and olive terraces. The stream bottom and the overgrown terraces are an inexhaustible territory for children and adults to discover flora and fauna.

The road continues uphill to Prelà, where it splits: on the left, it curves up into the mountains until it ends in the last mountain village, Villa Talla. On the right, it climbs through olive groves and passes through picturesque villages to Pantasina and from there to the alpine zone above 1000 m, through chestnut woods and alpine meadows, with fantastic distant views of the sea.

Imperia consists of 2 towns: the picturesque hilltop Porto Maurizio (several beaches) and the more urban Oneglia with numerous shops, cafés, bookshops, Piazza Dante with its shady arcades, the commercial port, some good fish restaurants and a museum of olive culture....