Sassello sits in a green valley on the northern slope of the Ligurian Apennines, surrounded by woods and pastures and partly within the Parco del Beigua. It is a quiet, attractive hill town well off the coastal tourist trail, known above all for its amaretti — soft macaroons made to a centuries-old recipe that remain the town's most famous product.
The town has a turbulent past, having been fought over by Genoa, Savoy, Spain, and Austria. Ruins of the Doria fortifications — the Bastia Inferiore on a hilltop and the Bastia Superiore near town — survive from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The church of Santa Trinità (1654) has frescoes by Bruschetto, and the oratory of the Disciplinati contains a wooden sculpture group by the Genoese master Maragliano.
The Museo Perrando houses archaeological finds from the area alongside a good collection of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century pottery from Savona and a gallery of paintings.