From Pieve di Soligo, birthplace and home of Andrea Zanzotto, a leading light of Italian poetry, to the gates of Valdobbiadene: a land of vineyards, small silk mills and shops dealing in furnishing fabrics, where the lively Prosecco also plays its part, inspiring artists and writers.

“The hills around Farra can still take my breath away, especially in the early morning, with the dew still on the ground”. Andrea Zanzotto, one of the great exponents of contemporary Italian poetry, has always eulogized his home environs in prose and verse, and never wanted to move away. Born 80 years ago in Pieve di Soligo, he still lives there despite his long-standing and openly critical views on the unbridled industrial and building development of the late twentieth century. “It has not all been lost, thankfully”, he says. “There are still a few spots that continue to remind me of paintings by Giorgione and Cima da Conegliano”. The lakes of Revine, for example, whose waters mirror “the reflections of an unchanged landscape”. Or the groundwater falls between Vidor and Moriamo della Battaglia, “salons of green bathed by myriad watercourses”. These places, referred to by the poet as “scattered reminders in a pervasive cementification”, would be enough to bring pleasure on a trip through the Quartier del Piave, that theatre of memorable battles, tucked between the heights of the Treviso Pre-Alps and the silvery course of the famous river. But besides the landscape, this is an area that offers great wines and fine cuisine, rural traditions and art treasures. Zanzotto’s own home town of Pieve di Soligo, with its renaissance historic centre, is the ideal starting point for an itinerary of both gastronomic and local craft interest, visiting prestigious wineries and the small but exclusive restaurants of the Alta Marca Trevigiana. It is through this same hill country that the middle part of the Strada del Prosecco winds its way, from Conegliano to Valdobbiadene. And these generous soils also yield the excellent Colli di Conegliano (red and white), the rare Marzemino, a raisin wine, or the more popular Verdino. The cuisine is seasonal in most of the restaurants, with mushrooms in autumn and self-seeding herbs in spring, and features a number of products typical to the area, notably Sopressa sausage, Malga cheeses, and red Treviso lettuce. But the Quartier del Piave is also famous for game and selections of spit-roast meats, which have their maximum expression in the giant community spit roast prepared every year at Pieve di Soligo in October.