Waterfall in the Parco delle Cascate.
The friendly owner of the argiturismo where we were staying happily gave us tips about the most beautiful sites in the region. On a hot day he advised us to go for a walk in the Parco delle Cascate – park of the waterfalls – in the small town of Molina di Fumane. Because the park is situated high up in the mountains, the trees of the forest block the sunlight and there is a lot of running water, it is usually nice and cool here. We decided to follow the owner’s advice and drove to Molina over many whirling and winding roads. The town is more than one thousand years old and has a name that was chosen for a reason: once it had many watermills that sawed, ground and pressed zealously. Some of the mills remain today, but they mostly do tricks for tourists nowadays. Visitors can leave their cars on the west side of Molina and then stroll through the town in just a few minutes, past the church of Sant’Urbano and to the entrance of the park.
The Parco delle Cascate is part of the Monti Lessini, that reach a height of 400 to 600 metres here. After buying their tickets visitors can choose between three trails, which differ in length and difficulty. The green trail is the easiest of the three. It is 1.2 kilometres long and can be completed in half an hour. Next comes the red trail, with a total length of 2.3 kilometres and an average difficulty. Expect a walk of about an hour if you take this trail. Lastly there is the most difficult trail, the black one. It has a length of 3.6 kilometres and will challenge visitors with a lot of climbing and descending. According to the information provided by the park it usually takes visitors some two hours to complete. If you decide to come to the Parco delle Cascate, make sure you bring along appropriate shoes. High heels are explicitly banned.
Church of Sant’Urbano in Molina.
Trail in the park.
Waterfall and caves.
We chose the red trail and walked on well-made tracks and along intriguing caves, pools and beautiful waterfalls. Many animals live in the park, including foxes, squirrels, owls, badgers, dippers, bats and several water animals. According to the information provided by the park there was a chance we would encounter all of these, but in the end the only animal we saw was a stray goat. It was actually quite logical that we saw no other animals, as they are all quite shy and there was a rather large crowd in the park that day. Especially popular was the altalena, or swing, which drew hordes of people. Those who have always wanted to ride a swing near a splashing waterfall should definitely visit the Parco delle Cascate. We certainly spent a lovely day there.
Pool of water.
Open space in the park.
Altalena (swing).
Altalena (swing).