Discover what to do in Crespadoro: the chestnut festival, the Papalini waterfall, the nativity scene trail. Do you want to know more? First of all…
Where is Crespadoro located?
The municipality of Crespadoro borders to the north with Recoaro Terme, to the northeast with Valdagno, to the northwest with Ala, to the southeast with Vestenanova, to the southwest with Selva di Progno, to the east with Altissimo, to the west with Selva di Progno.
The chestnut festival
The popular festival takes place every year, with rare exceptions, in the month of October. The 2022 edition took place from Friday 14 to Sunday 16 October in the hamlet of Durlo.
The event enhances the exquisite fruit through homemade sweets, marron and chestnut creams, as well as through traditional roasted chestnuts cooked on crackling fires in large pierced pans.
In addition to the market of typical products and live music shows, the program includes comfortable dining areas where you can enjoy gourmet dishes based on chestnuts.
If you are wondering what to do in Crespadoro and wish to spend the autumn season lively and carefree among glasses of mulled wine, wine glasses, live music and taste the symbol fruit of a healthy land nestled in the Lessini mountains, attending the chestnut festival might be just right for you!
The Papalini waterfall
The starting point is the locality of Ferrazza. Leave the restaurant on your left and follow Via Ferrazza, then proceed along Via Papalini where the trail begins, following the course of the Corbiolo and offering enchanting views of the vibrant floral, shrub and tree heritage that shades the white road like a lush vault of foliage.
During the silent journey you will find a pristine frescoed shrine, small bridges offering fascinating glimpses of icy streams, a centuries-old ruin partly devoured by weeds, a sacred depiction painted on a rock, perhaps of Saint Francis. The presence of the waterfall is announced by the roar of the watercourse sliding from a funnel-like limestone surface and crashing onto the rocks. Passing underneath a crevice, you can contemplate this pleasant corner of nature from several suggestive perspectives.
The nativity scene trail
The starting point of the itinerary is the parish church of Campodalbero in Via Bauci. Follow Via Bauci, leaving the cemetery in the shade of tall, dark fir trees on your left. After a few meters appears the first nativity scene of the route, inside a wooden bucket. The figures of Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus, made of fabric and wool, are lying on a bed of moss while a golden shooting star shines in the background.
Keep right on the dirt path that descends the green slope until you reach contrà Rope. The second nativity scene includes the statues of the Magi, the ox, the donkey and a lamb, placed in a tiny hut externally adorned with an ivy border.
Proceed downhill along the path that crosses the village and goes into the dense forest vegetation parallel to Via Zanconati. Also made in a wooden basin, the nativity scene located along the path just before contrà Riva presents, besides the figures of Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus, the sculpture of two white joined hands.
Perched on the wooded slope of the Lessini mountains, with a wide-ranging view of the small dolomites, the picturesque village displays a miniature of the ancient stable, described in the gospels of Luke and Matthew, in a large square basin from which crystalline water flows.
The model consists of a ‘a two-story house, with a double sloping roof, overlooking a soft moss lawn with goats and shepherds. Next to the house is the cave depicting the birth of Christ. Above the cave is a shed from which the archangel Gabriel looks out.
The following stop along the walk, during which you will find the sculpture of an owl and a charming nativity scene, is contrà Zanconati.
Some of the representations of the sacred Christmas event are made near large fountains that feed tiny water mill wheels; other reproductions of the city of Bethlehem are placed on windowsills, where tufts of moss and fir twigs protrude through iron grates.
Another creative interpretation shows a terracotta amphora overflowing with fine gravel that spills into a layer of larger pebbles on which the inhabitants of tiny houses made of cardboard, wood and straw, connected by small bridges and stairways, climb.
Passing the statue of an owl with outstretched wings and a shrine with the simulacrum of a saint with two doves (perhaps Saint Gregory), visible through a sinuous floral motif in wrought iron, you reach contrà Langari, a cluster of stone houses and stables among which stand a fountain and a shrine covered in spring and summer with white bells and colorful primroses.
The path now continues northward following the course of the Chiampo with its gushing rapids. Among the dense vegetation, a family of foxes carved among thick tangles of branches, nativity scenes hidden in the cavities of trunks on the banks of icy streams are glimpsed.
Contrà Graizzari di sopra and contrà Graizzari di sotto are rich in art, frescoes of bucolic scenes, small villages lapped by streams among moss-veiled rocks, fairies, gnomes and animals carved in wood, nativity scenes painted in tree cavities.
The dirt track winds along the side of the mountain until reaching Laghetto di Campodalbero, a pleasant village nestled between steep slopes. This location is ideal for resting and sunbathing on the riverbed, lulled by the gurgle of clear waterfalls.
The next destination is contrà Lovezzi, where a nativity scene set up in a sailboat, whose paddles are operated by the jet of a fountain, stands out for its originality.
The tree vegetation thins out giving way to vast grassy clearings. In contrà Lovati di sotto, the millennial stable of Christian tradition is reproduced in huts of wood and straw. Wit and imagination are also expressed through the painted silhouette of a bear fishing in a stream and splendid pictorial works of mountain scenery.
The trail leads back to the church of Campodalbero, decorated with a fresco of the nativity in which two sources of light emerge: the shooting star illuminating the night sky and the straw hut and the halos of baby Jesus, Mary and Saint Joseph irradiating the interior of the stable.
