Recoaro Terme is a small town in the Upper Agno Valley, in the province of Vicenza, situated in a basin surrounded by green hills and the mountain chain of the Small Dolomites. Set 500 metres above sea level, the town enjoys a fresh, healthy pre-alpine climate, which is perfect for both summer holidays and winter sports in the district of Recoaro Mille.
It lies 42 km from the chief town of Vicenza 42 km and is connected by regular bus services. The town can be reached by travelling about thirty km along the S.S. 246 from the Alte/Montecchio exit of the Serenissima Milan-Venice motorway, or from the S.S. 11 padana superiore.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
The earliest families to settle, first on the hills (Rovegliana), and then on the valley floor, were most certainly the German settlers, who came with Redbeard, speaking a medieval, Germanic dialect that later became known as "Cimbrian".
It was just after the mid 12th Century and these first inhabitants were dedicated to tilling the land for farming, deforestation and turning wood into charcoal. For many centuries, also because of their geographical isolation, they were forced to lead a poor, agricultural-pastoral type existence.
The small town’s luck seems to have changed following the discovery of a chalybeate spring in July 1689, which was called LELIA after the person who discovered it, the count of Vicenza, Lelio Piovene.
However, a series of disputes and controversies began to control and own the spring, naturally with a view to reaping the financial rewards that this discovery could bring. The first scientific study of the spring was carried out by Giovanni Graziani, a professor of medicine at the University of Padua, who illustrated the healing properties and qualities of the water in his book "Thermarum patavinarum examen", in 1701.
The disputes, first between its noble finder, and then the land owner and the municipality of Recoaro, to own and consequently exploit the valuable water, continued for a number of decades. As did the illegal taking of the water, which also helped spread the water’s fame as far as Venice.
Finally, after the land owners’ hundredth attempt at proclaiming themselves owners of the water, the “Serenissima Republic of Venice” was forced to issue a proclamation in 1752, granting free use of the chalybeate water to both locals and outsiders, appointing the owners as the custodians of the spring.
Recoaro’s ascent had finally begun.
Work was subsequently started, again by the Venetian Republic, on the building of an architectural complex with a classical structure, called the "Palazzotto", to house the permanent water collection, storage and supply. It was during this work that 3 new springs were discovered, called Lorgna, Amara and Nuova.
The spa town’s development continued, without interruption, also when Austria succeeded the Venetian Republic.
Many artists and figures of culture, such as ZANELLA, ALEARDI, NIETZSCHE chose Recoaro as a meeting place and as a place to come for healing and rest, but its moment of greatest splendour came when QUEEN MARGHERITA and the Crown Prince Vittorio Emanuele, came to visit, and spent a few weeks in the “Emerald Basin” in 1879.
RECOARO MOUNTAIN
PROMORECOARO: www.recoaroterme.com
THE WATER FESTIVAL
EVENTS IN RECOARO |
