Casa del Sale.

In the heart of the Venetian Prealps, between hills and mountains, the Casa del Sale is an ancient patriarchal house of a rich peasant family. From here you can start for gentle walks, bike rides, challenging walks, countless bike trails, snowshoeing, photo research, cross-country skiing, visits to cities of art, search for genuine food and local cuisine, and visits to the prehistoric village, the Valley of the Mills, the Labioli, the Alpine Garden. The space The house is the result of a conservative restoration that allows you to directly experience the spaces formerly used. Of course, this also guarantees all modern comforts: you will be amazed by how much care we have tried to put into the quality of your life in this house. The attic for the kids, the intimacy of the rooms to rest, read or use the PC, allow the use of this family space in all seasons and in all weather conditions. The proximity of small village trattorias allows the enjoyment of excellent local cuisine and Asiago guarantees all the services for a more traditional tourism based on consumption of every level and expectation. Guest access The house is entirely available for our guests. We expect them to take care of it with the same love we have for the memories of the past. However, I am very often in the house next door and for any urgency Francesca resides in Lusiana and can help you. Other things to note If it may be of use to you, this is an article I recently wrote. Neighborhood tourism between competition and sweetness There is a phenomenon that is now becoming increasingly visible in some areas of Veneto: short tourism and closer to home. In practice, it is as if the area in which we live is expanding. While a vacation was once understood as a medium-long period to spend away from home, today, distances are increasingly shorter and the possibility of spending time away also sees the opportunity to 'discover' nearby places with many small periods that reveal their secrets and surprises. To exemplify this phenomenon, we have observed a particular area of Veneto: the natural amphitheater of the Pedemontana overlooking the Alto Vicentino, also reporting some examples of interesting tourist start-ups for the future of what we can call wandering tourism 'near home'. The amphitheater of the mountains Tourism, like all economic activities, has undergone profound transformations in recent years; it might seem like a fairly obvious and banal statement, if it did not imply profound transformations in the quality of life. Here we observe one of the richest and most historically significant areas of Veneto, that of the Prealps that start from Pasubio (2239 m.), pass through the Asiago Plateau and extend to Monte Grappa (1775 m.). It is a veritable natural amphitheater that has a crown of mountains within it, many of which exceed 2000 m. In this pre-Alpine arc, it is also interesting to note the presence of some valleys that have been fundamental to the economy of the mountains and the plains; the Valdastico and the Valsugana in particular have allowed for many centuries a great development of movement of people and goods from the plains to the North and vice versa. At the foot of this imposing amphitheater, there is also a part of the plain where one to two million people live and work, the closest area being that of Altovicentino, which extends to Altopadovana and part of Treviso. Of course, in our case, the population mainly concerned is that of Vicenza, but in reality, we will see that this is increasingly the past, given, for example, that from the foothills of the Asiago Plateau, within a radius of 100 km, we find Treviso, Venice, Padua, Vicenza and almost Verona. In other words, it is not a difficult distance to cover for a day's drive. Before proceeding, however, it should be remembered that the territory closest to this mountain range has a historically distinctive feature. In fact, the first Italian industrial revolution was born here in the second half of the nineteenth century, with the most famous specificity, that of textiles, and with a production capacity that is perhaps a little less known, but which today is the most present, which concerns precision mechanics. The Agno Valley and the Schio area are well known for their textile history, which today is certainly less present, but which has represented a radical change for the entire country. Precision mechanics has always been equally important, but has enjoyed less visibility, while today the territory that goes from Schio to Bassano has one of the highest concentrations of precision mechanics companies in Europe. Observe people on the move You only need to spend a weekend in this pre-Alpine amphitheater to realize that many radical changes in social behavior are occurring in the post-crisis period. First of all, you immediately notice a great proliferation of cyclists, who combine a desire for physical well-being, a propensity for sports competitiveness, often too much so, and a desire for open spaces; in the Prealps, there is a real challenge in measuring oneself with the ups and downs of the hundreds of roads and lanes usually little frequented by traffic. The phenomenon is taking on such large dimensions that it is beginning to create problems of coexistence between cyclists and motorists. Cyclists themselves, who do not like the presence of cars, when they change into motorists realize that bicycles are a considerable danger, for example, because cyclists ride too fast, especially downhill, perhaps recklessly taking corners at great speed and poor visibility. In addition to this increasingly widespread phenomenon, there is also (for now more quietly) the spread of gentle walks (soft walking) that go to discover the lesser-known, but no less interesting, beauties of the Pedemontana. This discovery of nature increasingly involves young people, with or without children, and foreigners who first discovered this gentle tourism, which has little love for mass movements. In this context, not only are traditional farming activities being discovered, transhumance and mountain huts are a resounding example, but increasingly interesting relationships are also being sought with the small hamlets of the villages and with the elderly who are still present. Also on an economic level, there is a recovery (often based on DIY and crafts) of residentiality that does not need high-sounding names of places, but in which the relationship with nature and people is sought and appreciated (and maybe even with food and drink, of course). This second model of itinerant tourism sees a growing number of foreigners who are suggesting a future that is also economically interesting for the phenomenon. For now, however, there is still no attention to this type of hospitality that sees local youth begin to transform a model of hospitality that seems trivial to them or, worse, that they still believe is possible only with the traditional model of tourist presences based only on the elderly or emigrants. In reality, for young people born in the mountains, the idea that the tourist, local or foreign, seeks ways of quality of life that in these places appear obvious, is not yet rooted. Just think that this area is home to the third most famous Italian cheese, Asiago, which is only surpassed by Parmigiano and Mozzarella, and which offers hundreds of different flavors at zero km in this mountain area. Wandering tourism right under your nose. Our point of observation and analysis was then articulated with the observation of two examples of Impossible Enterprise in the tourism field, the Locanda la Scuola and the Casa del Sale. The first, in particular, was born a few years ago from a small utopia of a young couple who arrived from the Venice area with the aspiration of innovative tourism. In fact, La Scuola is characterized by an impossible location, the Municipality of Lusiana, where tourism was radically over after almost all the small family hotels/guesthouses had closed when the presence of a not very rich middle class (families and the elderly) found itself in the grip of a crisis that was first impending and then devastating, which no longer allowed even modest rents and one-star hotels. The phenomenon of second homes had not even been triggered and the residency that could have exploited the idea of the Asiago Plateau, much more prestigious, but in turn in a strong identity crisis, with a growing number of houses sadly empty throughout the year, had also vanished. La Locanda La Scuola was therefore born as a kind of utopia of new tourism, but also with a very strong identity of image and substance: it is a school from the first half of the twentieth century, with rooms named after school subjects, such as arithmetic, history, the teacher, etc. Breakfast is managed as in the great many-star hotels and the decor takes you back to the historical period of the splendor of elementary school. With this proposal, we then try to enhance that infinite series of little things that make the area a gold mine: traditional apples and pears, the paths that run through a municipality that has a territory that goes from Monte Corno (1383 m.) to the hamlet of Laverda (229 m.), the beauty of its small valleys (the famous one of the Mills), its historical routes and its traditional dishes. But it also offers a small 'secret' of the territory, apparently not very original, but which projects it into the future: Lusiana is 15 km from Asiago and its CAI trails, 12 km from the wines of Breganze, a day to spend in a city of art (Vicenza 40 km., Verona 100 km., Padua 70 km., Venice 110 km., Treviso 70 km.), a myriad of small villages within reach. In short, there is an unknown carnet but full of potential wonders of a serene place and off the standard routes of mass tourism. What has produced this innovation, which could become a new model of tourism? Surely the greater propensity of the population of the plain to use means of mobility, especially the bicycle, naturally always combined with the car, which has led to a way of observing the territory more closely. This type of tourist, who is more participatory today, wants to savor the area both with slow movement, walking, and with a slow/fast way, by bicycle, and with more traditional means, when needed. Then there is the subtle charm of the 'other' dwelling that cannot be easily found in everyday life, much less in the most renowned places. Both the Locanda La Scuola and La Casa del Sale (an experience that has just begun) lead the guest to possess for a few days an extraordinary home with unimaginable meanings of the place, in La Scuola the memories of childhood, in the Casa del Sale a centuries-old patriarchal family home, very modern in services but historically impeccable in safeguarding the past. All this is the result of a search for a serene reinterpretation of the past and the present, which becomes a cultural heritage that can be extended to the new local generations. Before continuing to imagine the tourism of the future, however, we must overcome an important stereotype: the ancient and the historical (Venice being the most striking case) are still important, but they are no longer the only trump card for the quality of the tourist offer. Of course, a Venetian villa is unparalleled, but perhaps for this reason, other qualities are beginning to qualify tourist offers, and these are qualities linked to the territory and its current development model. What changes is not only history, but the possible combination of history and modernity. Imagine seeing Veneto as a single metropolis of almost five million inhabitants. It becomes easy to imagine that its parts (for example, the Vicenza Pedemontana) are no longer decentralized places, since Veneto is a large metropolis without a single center, but rich in many different centers. Similar to what happened in the last centuries of Venice's splendor, the relocation of large families to the mainland did not lead to a new city, as would have happened during the industrial revolution, but to many centers with the large Villa as their beating heart. Venice, unlike other types of large estates, shifts production to the mainland, but each large family remains together as a fragment of Venice and an articulated reality of a local village. Palladio's villas are not only places of exhibition of wealth and splendor, but also productive structures where the management of agricultural activities sees the careful participation of the owners. It is no coincidence, for example, that the production of agricultural machinery in the 19th century was already anticipated in the 18th century (think of the history of Laverda). It is easy to understand how much the phenomenon anticipated the modern glocal. This fragment of history and development is easily observable today in globalization where the Local, its rhythms, its habits, its styles and its images, become the beating heart of Globalization. The thousand places of the Local are all different, but similar in communication, in production methods, in many lifestyles and well-being. The Pedemontana we are talking about is now incorporated into the development model and quality of life of this corner of Veneto, indeed it is even one of the most advanced places of globalization, but it does not lose its thousand small stories and its originality of quality of life. In this context, it could be said that our Prealpine Amphitheater is about to take on the role of a large natural park behind the productive area of the plain. The experiences we have mentioned represent a kind of avant-garde of a new tourist hospitality industry in which the family that rents the room and the small tourist hospitality units are about to accompany a very innovative and high-quality behavior of use of the territory. The young people of the Prealpine Amphitheater are probably the most interested in all this, even if in reality they do not yet seem to have a clear idea of how it another world compared to that of their parents. There is certainly no lack of the ability to appreciate the quality of life of the past, what has not yet succeeded is the transition to the modern usability of this quality of the past. What probably still holds back the initiative of local young people is the lack of knowledge and observation of how the 'normal' elements of their land can be transformed into quality of life in globalization. While tourism has already begun to develop this relationship, for locals, cultural development is still poorly understood, with the risk that competition will develop more for those who can hold their alcohol rather than the effort to open up to a more modern welcome. It is evident, on the other hand, that a residential offer rich in quality and beauty, a rediscovery of a cuisine to be told by the elderly, a meticulous and attentive knowledge of one's territory, become, all together, elements that can make this territory increasingly interesting and build a high-quality tourist hospitality. Registration Details IT024127C29UFCP7BI