Pöslen hamlet (ph: Roberto Costa Ebech)

No, this is not the story of two lovers. Neither of a limited company. But only that of two tawny-coated hound dogs.

They lived till some time ago near my town, in a house close to the woods, secluded and quiet, where no noise coming from motorcycles or other diabolic machines (…)

Things go as usual on this Earth; the sun rises and sets, the crops ripen, the snow falls. Even in the small house next to the wood: wooden tubs are made in winter, fields are worked and plants are cut in summer, men go hunting in autumn. Just like a thousand years ago and a thousand years again.”

From “Il bosco degli urogalli” (The wood of the capercaillies), “Alba e Franco” (Alba and Franco).

The context

In the house of the Pöslen hamlet, south of Asiago, Rigoni Stern sets in the years immediately after World War II, an intense and moving hunting story, a tribute to his great passion and also a heartfelt homage to two great hounds, the small and agile Alba, so baptized as a sign of “hope for new days after so many black years,” and the stocky, thief and very clever Franco. The description of the daily life of a Plateau family in the postwar years is very accurate, especially as well as the dynamics of hunter-dog relationship in the context of the broader relationship between man and nature.

The route

Pöslen hamlet

The hamlet is located south of Asiago, towards mount Kaberlaba, less than a kilometre from the small church of the Madonna della Neve (Our Lady of the Snows). However, you can reach it also on foot or by mountain bike, with small ups and downs, directly from Asiago, starting from the Museo alle Carceri and taking the road to the hamlet Ave, going past the area of the rocks and the cross under the Lazzaretto, where it joins the path of the Rogazione. Arrived at the wayside shrine and the farm described in the story, go down to the right along the asphalt road to the parking of the Madonna della Neve, where bike riders can get back to Asiago along the asphalt road (Muse, Scampa, Mörer, cemetery hamlets), while pedestrians, on the right of the hairpin bend that goes down to the square, can take an easy path through the fields that reaches Scampa, crosses the Ghelpack creek, and then at the first clearing turns right, goes past the airstrip and comes out in front of the cemetery.