May is the month in which the plain turns its gaze towards the peaks. The event “Treviso Window on the Dolomites”, promoted by Vita del Popolo in the Longhin theater room of Casa Toniolo, in Treviso, returns with unchanged enthusiasm. This year there will be three evenings, 10, 17 and 24 May at 8.30 pm, awaiting mountain enthusiasts. In the first appointment, Friday 10 May, Michele Da Pozzo, director of the Dolomiti d’Ampezzo Park, will talk about this “little paradise”. It is a protected natural area in which there are varied natural and landscape beauties that attract tourists, botanists, geologists, zoologists etc.
From a territorial point of view, the Park occupies over 11,000 hectares (starting from the northern area of Cortina d’Ampezzo and extending to the border with Trentino Alto Adige) within which we find famous Dolomite groups such as: Tofane, Fanes, Col Bechei, Croda Red Ampezzo and Crystal. In the absence of residential settlements and ski areas, immersion in natural beauty is total. Faunal and floristic biodiversity is rich thanks to the variety of habitats of waters and peat bogs, prairies and high altitude forests.
In these parts you can easily spot animals such as roe deer, marmots, deer, ibex, foxes, squirrels, golden eagle, capercaillie, ptarmigan, eagle owl, owl, white hare, ermine and dormouse; the flora is present with over a thousand species of flowers and around seventy species of trees and shrubs.
In the second meeting, Friday 17 May, the president of the Section of the CAI (Italian Alpine Club) of Domegge di Cadore, Gianfranco Valagussa, will try to eradicate the stereotype that considers the association as a reality that promotes a sort of mountaineering sporting activity that unfolds on different fields (hiking, rock climbing, skiing, cross-country, snowshoeing, mountain biking etc.) in the pursuit of records. In truth, the CAI, with 700,000 members throughout Italy, almost 500 sections and 606,000 kilometers of paths to manage, is increasingly establishing itself as a cultural reality that is aware of a much broader and multidisciplinary task.
In fact, if we correlate the human factor and the mountain territory, the CAI is the largest environmental association in our country. The classic Alpine mountain section has always had this awareness/consciousness, because its reason for being develops along areas of activity strongly linked to the Alpine territory (attendance, knowledge, monitoring, safety and maintenance). The CAI Section of Domegge di Cadore, beyond the numerical size of its members, has promoted this type of cultural approach with local institutions and inhabitants over the last decade.
It will be interesting to listen to this experience and try to make all this become an object of reflection and treasure on the part of the “mountain dwellers of the plains”.
In the third and final appointment, May 24th, Barbara Castagnera will introduce us to the Eremo dei Romiti, a magical place. In the center of Cadore, a mountain reality with a tendency towards abandonment of various economic and demographic components and the depletion of environmental and landscape resources, the Eremo dei Romiti, located on Monte Froppa at 1,164 metres, constitutes a presence that goes against the trend. After years of abandonment and concealment (caused by the woods that had slowly incorporated it), the Hermitage is now easily identifiable from Domegge.
Built in 1720 on the initiative of Franciscan friars of the third order of friars minor, the Hermitage (not without imaginative tales and legends present in the oral tradition of the valley dwellers) was first the subject of a private donation to the Municipality of Domegge di Cadore and, then, an important reconstruction of the central body. Now, the restoration of the attached church is at an advanced stage. Starting from the lake in the center of Cadore (under the large and beautiful church of Domegge), the Hermitage can be accessed via two routes: a path on the side facing the lake and, alternatively, a forest road on the northern side where there are some huts immersed in the silence of the woods (wonderful to walk through in winter, covered in snow, with snowshoes). After a walk of about an hour and a half (450 meters of altitude difference), you arrive at the green esplanade on which the building stands and from which you dominate the entire Cadore center as far as the eye can see: a vision that rewards the effort faced to reach the goal.
The Hermitage, which is now used as an “unconventional refuge”, has all the “personal data” in order to define itself as the “oldest” of the refuges in Cadore. Here, almost instinctively, the hiker feels he must gather in silence, meditate and, nowadays fashionable, practice forest therapy. The cuisine proposed by the “guardian” of the Hermitage is home-made and made, in principle, of seasonal raw materials.
At the Hermitage you can hear boys and girls, with serious studies behind them, magnificently playing pieces of classical music with classical guitar and violin and you can also hear competent people discussing botany, geology and spirituality. A library is available to guests, hikers and wayfarers. With the church completely restored, interest in history and religious culture will certainly grow.
