Prà del Giglio

“They went that way, in lines. The father before, who led Reno by reins; then Matteo, grandpa, Nina and her mother. They took the path that linked up the district of Giare to that of Mone di Calvene, and when they were at the bend of Fontanello they stopped to give a rest to the mule which was panting for the climb, but also to give one more look over there, to the grassy glade surrounded by the forest, where the tiles of the Pra del Giglio’s house glowed.”

From “L’anno della vittoria” (The year of the Victory)

“Refreshed now, Giacomo and Irene set off again, pedaling hard for the Granezza Plain. Al Mazze, on Monte Bocchetta, they could see the Brenta and Astico Rivers, twisting and disappearing into the distance, and the air was flooded with the intoxicating smell of narcissus: the meadows were so white with them, you could barely see the green of the grass. The two stopped and stood there, holding hands, looking out over that new, unknown world – the meadows full of narcissus, the districts farther down, all the red-tile roofs, the distant towns with their bell towers. Maybe those dark spots out there were cities. And far, far away – beyond the plains – what were those hills, blurring into the sky?
The world’s so vast, they both were thinking”.

From “Giacomo’s seasons,” translated by Elizabeth Harris, Autumn Hill Books, 2012.

The context

Daffodils in bloom in locality Mazze (ph: Roberto Costa Ebech)

The first passage tells of the return home, in the spring of 1919, of the Schenal family, which had found refuge from the war in a small house in the district of Pra del Giglio, above Calvene. Their journey, partly along the so-called “road of the Plateau salvation” made after Caporetto, took Pra’ del Cavalletto, the Mazze, the Barental, up to the clearing of Luka – where they have the revelation of the immense destruction left by the war – to continue then in a sad pilgrimage through what were the streets of the town, on which ruins the statue of the Beata Giovanna (Blessed Jane Mary Bonomo) stands alone, almost intact. The second passage reconstructs instead the reverse path, made some years later by James and Irene to visit just the places where the girl’s family had lived during the war. To the enchantment for the wonderful panorama that unfolds before the eyes of the couple at Mazze, soon they added the sad awareness of the hard life experienced by their relatives in those years, but also the warmth of the meeting with the neighboring families which had welcomed and helped them.

The route

Military cemetery in locality Granezza-Mazze.

The area described here is south of the Asiago Plateau, in the Pedemontana. Most of the places mentioned can be reached by car on the road mentioned above, which descends from Asiago to Calvene (see the Barental itinerary, also connected to Granezza through the beautiful path 888, Sentiero dei Partigiani). In the plain of Granezza, the scene of fierce battles between Nazi-fascists and partisans during the Resistance (as shown by a shrine), you pass an English military cemetery. Then, from the Monte Corno’s square and around the slopes of the scenic Cima Fonte (possible deviation on foot, then using the path 693), you descend to the area of the low mountains above the hamlets of Monte and Mortisa and the village of Calvene. From here, just above the centre, passing by Via Bordogni you can easily reach Pra’ del Giglio, with beautiful views of the valley of the Astico and the surrounding hills.

From the district, crossing the paved road that goes up a few more hairpin bends, the path 693 passes, which is the one travelled by the Schenal family for their return to the Plateau. Continue climbing to the north after about two kilometres and you cross the path 697 on the right, on which you immediately go down in Valle di Fondi and then rapidly climb in a southeasterly direction toward the second hairpin bend (815 m) of the Strada della Salvezza (Road of Salvation) above the Monte hamlet. A possible variant of the Schenal route leaves the path 693 at an altitude of 538 metres in the curve below the Pozza hamlet, moving along the dirt road to the right towards the valley floor; from here past the hairpin bend, it climbs back for 200 metres to join with the lower part of the path 697 and with it (keeping left) it reaches the bottom of the Monte hamlet. Steep slopes.