Welcome to the Anfiteatro Morenico di Ivrea, not just a geographical area of Canavese, but one of the best-preserved glacial geological formations on the entire planet!
Do you not already feel part of a special place?
We, mere humans, were just beginning to take our first upright steps when, in the Quaternary period, all of this began to form: and now you are here to discover it with us (or are thinking of coming here), to hear from those who live here how much beauty is hidden behind every hill, how much life is hosted in the small morainic lakes, how much knowledge can be found in every town or small city of this place.
The term “amphitheater” derives from the characteristic arched, “horseshoe” shape that characterizes the hilly reliefs forming the outer edge: imagine a large basin, almost quadrangular, where, instead of water, there’s a plain. Not a monotonous plain but one dotted with micro-lakes (Viverone, Candia, Sirio, San Michele, Pistono, Nero, Campagna, Meugliano, Alice, Bertignano), peat bogs, enormous erratic boulders, unusual rock outcrops, smaller hilly elevations, and natural and artificial watercourses that become ideal habitats for extraordinary biodiversity.
But who crafted such an articulated landscape, so varied and contained in only 530 sq km? (about 30 x 27 sq km.) It’s all the work of an enormous glacier, the Ghiacciaio Balteo: over 100 km long, up to 800 meters thick, and up to 3 km wide, it flowed from Valle d’Aosta into the Canavese plain with the effect of a gigantic bulldozer, able to accumulate impressive amounts of debris in front of itself and, at the same time, drag everything it encountered along its path. Then, with alternating phases of melting and advancement, it continued to build ridges of hills and modify what had been done in the previous phase, until reaching the final result: the rest was done by time, nature, and man.
Some lakes dried up, turning into peat bogs, elevations were covered in vegetation (also very different from area to area depending on the soil composition), and humans began to populate the most strategic places, near watercourses or on heights for defensive purposes, altering the landscape but never distorting it: they did not dig holes, flatten hills, or mortify nature.
WE are part of all this! All this is part of CANAVESE VILLAGE!
If we’ve piqued your curiosity, all that remains is to plan your days in Canavese to discover:
Ivrea, with its Olivetti architectures and the historic center along the Dora Baltea; the myriad of small villages nestled on the hills, each with a church, a castle, a tower, a sanctuary, a museum, a gastronomic specialty;
the vineyards of Carema clinging to the mountain and those of Erbaluce gently laid out on the hills, sometimes sloping towards the lakes;
the lakes where you can swim, practice canoeing and rowing, or simply enjoy a boat ride
the many trails and paths to be explored on foot, by mountain bike, or on horseback
our hospitality, sometimes initially a bit reserved, but then warm and authentic
