Mezzano Romantica

Among the ‘Borghi più Belli d’Italia’ (the most beautiful villages in Italy), very close to Fiera di Primiero and San Martino di Castrozza, Mezzano claims its proud identity and celebrates the countryside with themed itineraries dedicated to water, gardens, rural architecture, carvings, frescoes, and woodpiles, which become art here. An example of an Italy that does not give up and represents values that are lost elsewhere.

Mezzano has always been a crossroads toward more renowned places, but for those who have the desire - and the intuition - to dwell in the village, Mezzano brings on stage its own show, an enchanting one with its disarming simplicity, joining the ranks of the ‘Borghi più Belli d’Italia’ (the most beautiful villages in Italy) thanks to a touching setting in the Dolomites.
Today the village is a kind of reservoir of alpine life, an inexhaustible mine of ideas that show in every hidden corner, along the narrow streets, in the small squares, in the shadow of the balconies in a vibrant museum under the sky. To be explored with different themed itineraries, inviting you to experience again the ‘scattered signs of the countryside’: water, gardens, architecture, wall paintings, ancient inscriptions, and artistic woodpiles.

For some time now, a discrete and enchanting new art form exploded, unique in its simplicity. So simple that no one had thought of it before. The village, in fact, is hosting many wonderful and monumental artistic woodpiles. Along the narrow streets, on the balconies, in the squares and the courtyards, the traditional stockpile of logs for the winter gets all pretty for ‘Cataste e Canzei’ (the local terms for the woodpiles), a particular initiative that each year attracts famous artists to create their large installations. So, here is the accordion that looks like a star, the hourglass between the sun and the moon to mark the passage of time, the great wall that reminds us of the flood that hit the village in 1966, the men intent on cutting the tree, and the unstable woodpile which yields in a choreographic collapse. A total of 25 artistic woodpiles already scattered throughout the village, and there are plans for new ones to be added year after year.

In Mezzano, everything comes from nature and to nature it leads. Just like the many marked trails that, by foot or mountain bike from the village, make you discover a still intact and poignant environment. Mezzano is in the natural reserve of the Parco di Paneveggio Pale di San Martino and adjoins the one of the Belluno Dolomites.

‘CATASTE E CANZEI’
The wood stockpile for the winter becomes art

Mezzano, jewel among the ‘Borghi più Belli d’Italia’ (the most beautiful villages in Italy), in a strong connection with wood and other elements of mountain nature, is hosting many wonderful artistic woodpiles.
In the summer of 2016 we inaugurated four more of them.

The traditional stockpile of logs for the winter gets all pretty and takes unexpected shapes along the narrow streets, at the feet of the ancient facades and before the typical balconies, in the small squares, the courtyards, under the stairs, in the hallways and on the very balconies: it gives back stories long past, delivers dreams, reinterprets historical events, tells us of the householders.

Every corner holds a surprise: the face in tears, the shuttle of the loom (a refined weaving mill of ancient weaves hides in the village), the large cob above the chicken coop, the wooden sticks landscape that looks like marquetry, the representation of a folk song, giant flowers, small windows between the logs from which lace and cascades of geraniums hang, in other words, a village to explore!