Boreca valley is a small valley created by river Boreca, tributary of Trebbia river, located at the heart of the Four provinces. It borders to the north with Staffora valley (Lombardy), to the west with Borbera valley (Piedmont), to the south with the high Trebbia valley (Liguria), to the east again with Trebbia valley (Emilia-Romagna). Surrounded by Mount Lesima (1.724 m high), Alfeo (1650 m), Tartago (1.688 m), Chiappo (1.699 m), Cavalmurone (1.670 m), Carmo (1.640 m), it is a rough valley to walk through and covered in woods. Boreca valley, coveing 51 Sq.m., is the largest sub basin of Ttrebbia valley, after that of Aveto which remains its most important tributary.
The valley is one of the most pure and unspoilt of the whole Apennine, also thanks to the depopulation which left the small villages around the valley uninhabited, and also thanks to its natural conformation dominated by a sloping and deep structure that has not been smoothed by the erosion of glaciers as it happened for other valleys. The small villages scattered around Piacenza Apennine are beautiful, and their names witness the presence of Hannibal’s Carthaginians, among which Zerba (from Jerba), and Tartago (from Chartago – Carthage).
The core of the valley is the smalle village of Zerba, a settlement of tribes from Liguria which long contrasted the invasion of Romans. Unfortunately, there is not much left of Malaspina Castle. The valley is dominated by chestnut trees and beeches, oak and hornbeam, large prairies under the tops of Mount Lesima and Alfeo, which can be climbed through tracks starting from Ottone and Zerba, looking for protected species of flora and the prints of roe deers and wolves. The valley unfolds along Boreca river, on the right there are the small villages of Tartago, Belnome and Pizzonero with their rural architectures; to the left, the area of Zerba with Malaspina tower and the suggestive road that leads to Pey and to the border of the Four provinces.
Boreca valley is also ideal to pick mushrooms and chestnuts.