LEVICO PARK & ARTE SELLA: HEALTH IN NATURE, ART IN NATURE

This itinerary, feasible and pleasant in any season, could start from Trento (or Bassano del
Grappa), requires private transportation and can be done in 6/7 hours, including a stop for lunch.

Not far from Trento (and reachable also by train) is the charming town of Levico Terme, renowned for its tiny fiord-like lake, much frequented during the summer, and for its curative waters and thermal Baths, once internationally known and frequented by the illustrious members of the Habsburg court.

The idea of surrounding the Spa with a large park, decorated by magnificent trees and large meadows for heliotherapy was developed by Georg Ziehl, a German landscape architect and gardener.

In few years (1898-1905) Ziehl  transformed a simple farmland into a 13-hectar informal garden, where of the Grand Hotel and Thermal Baths guests could relax, enjoy walking at any season surrounded by magnificent plants and meadows.

The variety of trees and shrubs we can find at Levico Park is amazing, counting 125 different kinds of trees, boasting some rare species.​

Entering the main gate, we will be welcomed by a monumental Californian sequoia, a great, white- flowered magnolia, a giant red beech, then the main promenade continues with cedars and redwood trees. The trees create a refreshing shade, while the lawns are spread with flowers.

The Vaia storm, at the end of October 2018, caused the uprooting of 216 large trees (out of 540), while a vast area of lawns and flowerbeds was destroyed.

Since then, the park has been reshapedwith a new collection of conifers and new deciduous trees with spectacular colored foliage,particularly attractive during fall. In spring you can admire 50,000 flowers blossoming with manydifferent species of tulips, and many other multicolored flowers.

From late November until the beginning of January Levico Park hosts a renown Xmas Market and a series of musical and cultural events.

After a lunch break in Levico, where we can savor some of the Valsugana Valley traditional recipes,
LEVICO PARK & ARTE SELLA tour continues along the river town of Borgo Valsugana, and stop to photograph the beautiful old houses, the long arcades, and the bridges along the Brenta River. From here we proceed uphill to Arte Sella.

Deep in the woods, in a secluded valley without hotels or restaurants, you don’t expect to find human creations dialoguing and rivalling in size and beauty with the trees, with the stones, with the streams, with the mountain itself. Art and nature are enhancing each other beauty here The impact is strong, the sense of peace and harmony is regenerating.

An idea came in 1986 to three local friends (philosopher Charlotte Strobele, who owned a house there, artist Emanuele Montibeller, architect, and urbanist Enrico Ferrari).

In about ten years things developed, and the initial space, the garden of Villa Strobele, was sided by the path along the southern side of Mount Armentera, where visitors can walk in the woods and discover the works from different viewpoints. Where the works will disappear, new creations will substitute them.

Unlike Land Art, where the artist is the protagonist, the movement to which Arte Sella belongs, “Art in Nature”, is based on a symbiosis between the environment and the creator: trunks, branches, leaves, stones, will be transformed during time by nature itself.

There will always be a good reason to visit Arte Sella again.

One of the marvels of Arte Sella came in 2011, when the artist Giuliano Mauri featured his first Vegetable Cathedral: the installation, divided in three ‘naves’ has the size of a real Gothic cathedral, the 80 columns formed by intertwined branches, with a hornbeam tree planted in each of them. The trees will grow, the columns that support them will disappear!

Another iconic installation is 0121-1110=115075, a huge wooden portal designed by Jaehyo Lee, that works on both sides as a majestic frame for a spectacular landscape and looks to us as a sun rising from the forest. No visitor will leave the woods of Arte Sella without a picture of this magic gate.

Another of our preferred art pieces is Henrique Oliveira’s Common Root (2019), that looks like an
enormous oak grown with a giant knot in its middle (it is in fact the fruit of a patient assemblage of
two different trunks). The work is even more attractive when partially covered with snow.

During the night between October 28 and 29, 2018, the terrible Vaia storm, that changed the
aspect of the Alps forever, unrooted 14 million trees, damaged the 50% of Arte Sella installations.

Now, in 2023, the deep wounds left by that terrible night have now almost completely recovered.

In winter Arte Sella is frequently covered with snow. Arte Sella is open every day except on Christmas. Levico Spa Park is open 365 days a year.

Please apply if you’d like to visit it with one of our experts. Write to info@walksinsideitaly.com. The
path isn’t difficult, and this is an ideal stroll even for families with small children.