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High Street Tobacco Museum
Valbrenta
The Alta Via del Tabacco (High Tobacco Road) is a cultural container that develops on a trail system that crosses, for over 35 km and a total of 2000 m of elevation gain, the hillside of the eastern slope of the Altopiano dei Sette Comuni, connecting places rich in natural and historical interest, memories of the tobacco era, smuggling routes, artefacts and traces of different historical periods.
The route can be considered a connector of places and paths that develops along the Brenta valley and connects, in the spirit of the ecomuseum, the most significant historical and naturalistic testimonies of the valley, travelling along the smugglers' routes, crossing the tobacco terraces, immersing oneself in the beech woods and among the flowering glades of the right bank of the Brenta, in dialogue with what is collected in the local museums.
The route starts at Ponte Vecchio in Bassano del Grappa and extends as far north as Valbrenta, with easy or challenging routes to choose from.
The visitThe Alta Via del Tabacco (High Tobacco Road) is an itinerary that brings us closer to what is preserved in museums. The route proposes an immersion in nature on the borders of human history. Thematic rings, signposts along the route and the recovery of historical toponymy have transformed it into a means of accessing places of historical and ethnographic value, such as the Calà del Sasso, the trenches and barrage lines of the Great War, the casare and terraced landscape that bear witness to the tobacco era, as well as the naturalistic one with beech forests visited by squirrels, chamois and mouflon, rocky slopes coloured by flora of great botanical importance, and covoli and caves of mysterious charm.
The Alta Via del Tabacco is accessible from various points in the valley bottom, indicated by appropriate signposts, and follows the CAI trail.
The height difference of the individual sections is generally moderate, but it is necessary to equip oneself with hiking equipment.
The history CloseThe Alta Via del Tabacco (High Tobacco Road) is a route born from the passion of the inhabitants and some of the valley’s cultural associations, becoming over time much more than a hiking trail.
The birth of the Alta Via del Tabacco diffuse museum began in 2008 when a group of enthusiasts, in collaboration with the CAI and the Comunità Montana del Brenta, began to rearrange the route with a view to its cultural revaluation, with the aim of establishing a diffuse museum. As the project progressed, the Civil Defence organisations of Valstagna and Campolongo, the CAI section of Marostica, the Giara Modon Caves Group, the C.E.G.E.I. scout section of Bassano del Grappa, the GEAR hiking group of the ANA of Rosà, and many other individual volunteers living here also joined in. Collaboration also extends to local administrations, private individuals, involving the museums of the valley and the universities of Padua and Venice. The group became a Committee in 2010 and an Association in 2013. In 2015 the Alta Via del Tabacco Museum became part of the Sistema dei Musei del Canal di Brenta.
