Dolomiti
A land of mountains and valleys, the Province of Belluno lies in north-eastern Italy, with the river Piave as its backbone. Among those mountains, the world-famous Dolomites star. It's an area of many attractions, a mix of surprises and traditions, rich of cultural as well as natural biodiversity.
S. Margherita's Church © - Dolomiti Turismo
The story of the bells of Sappada began when the church of St Margaret was built, in 1792. The boys of Sappada used to gather in groups of bell players, more often than not competing with one another.During the First World War the Austrian army took the bells, melted them and turned their metal into heavy guns. In the 1920s the community put new bells into operation: the big one, the medium one and the small one, this latest flanked by yet another bell, meant to warn everybody in time, should a fire start in the area. There are two styles of playing the Sappada bells: the happy style, during festivities, and the sad style, mostly for funerals or commemorations. One of those groups of bell players of old, the Plodar Klocken Laitar, exists still today, ready to provide the villagers with the sound of St Margaret bells during religious or solemn festivities. So the bells of Sappada keep welcoming pilgrims from Luggau, announcing a new baby born or, in the sad case, mourning someone who's gone.
Kneidl © - Dolomiti Turismo
Sappada specialties, prepared the peasant way, are certainly peculiar and worth tasting. Food had to be plenty on the tables of old, since it came at the end a day of hard work, often in the fields or the wood. Some sweeties, instead, were prepared by women - and distributed throughout the family - only for Christian festivities. Here some samples of local dishes. The “Gherschte Suppe” is a barley soup with milk, speck (a sort of flavored ham, fairly common throughout north-eastern Italy) and potatoes. The “Plodar fricco” is made of cheese (medium or full seasoning) and boiled potatoes. The “Kneidl” are the typical breadballs with eggs, milk, bacon or speak, chives. Then cakes must be tried, starting with the "Ghebaitz", that is "focaccia" (a flat oven-baked bread) with salami, which used to be eaten on Easter under the special terms that both bread and salami (or speck) had been prepared and blessed that same day. More properly sweet are the fried “Muttn”, made of eggs, sugar, milk, flour and yeast (which used to be prepared after June and September harvests), the “Hosenearlan”, fried the same style but three-cornered (served on Carnival), and the “Mogn kropfn”, filled with honey and poppy seeds.
Ardo Stream © - Dolomiti Turismo
From March to September you can angle in the river Piave and the Ardo stream without leaving town, thanks to the special "Bacino di pesca n. 8 Città di Belluno". Daily or multi-daily licences can be purchased directly at the Belluno information desk, in the cathedral square.
Polenta, local food © - Dolomiti Turismo
The Valbelluna and the Feltre area boast a wide range of good ol' agricultural products, still processed like centuries ago. Here's a list. The "Mais Sponcio" is a peculiar sort of corn, used to make high-quality flour for the typical "polenta" (a mush of cornmeal, very popular in northern Italy). The special "Agordo Barley" is processed under traditional conditions to produce an excellent barley coffee. Then there are the "Gialet Bean", the "Lamon Bean"(whose production area is protected as an IGP, or Indicazione Geografica Tipica), the "Farro Grande di Montagna"(or "Big Mountain Emmer Wheat"), the "Feltre Nut", the "Feltre Chestnut", the "Pom Pussian" and the "Belluno Yellow Pumpkin". All of these products star at "Dolomiti d'autunno", a food & wine fair held every fall in the Province of Belluno. Barley, in particular, has become really important at the feet of the Belluno Dolomites during the last couple of decades. Cooperatives have been formed, and the consultancy of the Belluno Ethnographic Museum has helped revamping and spreading local agricultural techniques.
Cansiglio Forest © - Dolomiti Turismo
Starting from the first centuries after the Year One Thousand, Venice gathered and maintained one of the most prominent fleets in the world, on both the commercial and the naval side. This meant a continuous and massive request of spruce, fir and larch trees for the ships' masts and of beech trunks for rows. To fulfil these needs, the Serenissima seeked agreements with local authorities and began to exploit the Cansiglio Forest, later called the “Foresta dei Dogi” or Doge's Forest. Wood had obviously to be carried to Venice, and the river Piave proved essential under this respect. The trees were left floating downriver till they reached the Venice Lagoon. As it happens, wood was not used only for ships. Being Venice by those times the most populated town in Europe, both wood and wood coal were heavily requested. For centuries the mountains in what is today the Province of Belluno were the main source for wood and wood coal to be used in Venice. Coalmakers kept working till 1966.
