Sentiero del Vù

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Depart: from Londa di Valstagna
Arrive: Col d’Astiago 1240 metres a.s.l.
Elevation gain: 1,100 metres
Walking time: 3.3-4 hours
Difficulty: challenging path suitable for expert trained hikers
Recommended period: preferably autumn or spring. the base ring can be walked all year round but the high part may have snow in winter

It is a route that follows the tracks of the tobacco smugglers and the guards who pursued them, when the masiere (terraces) were mainly used for growing tobacco plants.
Dedicated to Albino Celi known as ‘El Vu’ because he used to address everyone using the formal Italian ‘voi’, a legendary recuperante, collector of war remains, who inspired the film ‘I recuperanti’ by Ermanno Olmi and the book ‘Le stagioni di Giacomo’ by Mario Rigoni Stern. The route follows the line of blockade prepared during the First World War and known as the ‘linea di sbarramento delle stelle e dei terrazzi’ (stelle for steles or stee=tree trunks, and terraces for the masiere of Valstagna), a line with strongholds at Col d’Astiago (a junction on the plateau), Valstagna, Carpanè, Col Moschin (on Monte Grappa), and behind the other main line of resistance of Monte Campolongo (Rubbio, Altopiano), Tovi (Oliero), Case Gennari (Grappa), which had to cover and provide maximum resistance if the ‘Tre Monti’ lines were breached in Gallio during the ‘Strafexpedition’ and control and defeat the Brenta and Val Frenzela valley bottom in the event of sorties into the valley. For war needs an aqueduct was prepared from Oliero (from the cave springs) to Col d’Astiago, on whose traces the current water supply was built, carrying water on the Altopiano di Asiago.