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Sasso – Stoccareddo – Buso

Sasso di Asiago

Sasso di Asiago

In one corner of the Plateau, around the fifteenth century, a rather strange people settled and for character and customs they little resembled a little the other inhabitants. Perhaps originally they were a couple of families of coal miners and lumberjacks from the Habsburg territories of the South Slavs.

But what most distinguished this people was the nature of their women, of strong and daring spirit, and that since they were children they were used to follow the seasonal migrations in the woods, and certainly not with meekness and submission.”

From “Amore di confine” (Border love), “Rivogliamo le nostre campane” (We want our bells again).

 

 

 

The context

The short story reconstructs, with a certain irony, a couple of episodes relating to the history of the village. The first tells the excited recovery, by the women of Sasso over a century ago, of the three bells of the village “seized” by the archpriest of Asiago as security because he had to take on himself the debt accumulated by the lazy curate of the hamlet. The second episode goes back to the Fifties, when the assembly of the villagers decided to use the money allocated by the Municipality of Asiago to bring the electric light in the hamlet, to rebuild the bell tower that was destroyed during the war. “I remember how these people,” wrote Rigoni Stern, “every Saturday came to the market to buy the strangest things: the men were buying electric shavers and hair dryers which they could not use yet because in their homes electricity had not been brought.

 

The route

The Calà del Sasso, with its 4.444 stone steps.

The Calà del Sasso, with its 4.444 stone steps.

Stoccareddo (ph: Roberto Costa Ebech)

Stoccareddo (ph: Roberto Costa Ebech)

The only “frazione” (partition) of the municipality of Asiago, Sasso is reachable travelling along the beautiful Val Chiama with a deviation from the Strada della Fratellanza to Bassano, a kilometre past Campomezzavia. Before the village, on the right, a road leads to the entrance of Calà del Sasso, which with 4,444 steps (and a vertical drop of 744 m) goes down to Val Brenta (CAI paths 778 and 778B). Built starting from 1388, it soon became one of the fastest ways of communication and exchange between the town of Asiago and the plain, avoiding the tolls of the roads controlled by neighbouring municipalities. Next to the stairs, a stone canal was used to slide timber downstream, which along the Brenta was then transported to Venice for the construction of buildings’ foundations and ships.

The sanctuary "Madonna del Buso" (ph. Roberto Costa Ebech)

The sanctuary “Madonna del Buso” (ph. Roberto Costa Ebech)

At Monte di Sasso, reachable from Contrà Caporai, there are on the east the Col d’Ecchele (1,107 m) and on the west Col del Rosso (1,281 m, path 805, Via Tilman, see itinerary of the Sacrario), that with Monte Valbella (1,270 m) was the scene of the decisive “Battaglie dei Tre Monti” (battles of the three mountains) during the First World War.

The sanctuary "Madonna del Buso" (ph. Roberto Costa Ebech)

The sanctuary “Madonna del Buso” (ph. Roberto Costa Ebech)

Continuing on the main road instead you reach Stoccareddo after about 3 km, fraction of Gallio which overlooks the picturesque Val Frenzela valley and the plain, with a beautiful church with Gothic-Alpine lines and the natural monument of the “Spizegonoto,” the third altar of the Cimbrian legends. From the Val Frenzela after other 3 km you arrive at Buso, where the sanctuary of the Madonna del Caravaggio (Our Lady of Caravaggio) stands, built in the Thirties of the 19th century by a hermit to assist travelers who ran through the Val Frenzela. It can be reached on foot, before the new viaduct, or by the Lorenzoni and Gianesini hamlets. From here the route gently climbs through curves and small villages, with several possible variants to the road that connects Foza to Gallio.

 

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