Unlike Rome, no roads lead to Val Codera.
The only way is on foot. That’s probably the beauty of it. Once there, you’ve got absolutely everything you could possibly need. So travel light, make time, energy and goodhearted benevolence your companions along the way and rely on your eyes for memories that will linger long. Signposts indicate a couple of hours are required to reach the village itself on a steady enough climb, often up granite steps lined by ancient chestnut woods of all shapes and sizes. It’s a journey of the senses through a range of landscapes to discover a valley which looks to the future. Reaching Codera you’re overwhelmed by a cornucopia of colours: tomatoes, vegetables of red and yellow hues, cabbages, soft fruit berries, the occupants of terraced plots of Alpine biodiversity scattered along the valley. Daniele’s day-to-day affair.
Climbing up, you can spot in the distance a rather special honeybee farm, hives placed horizontally and where you can experience the extraordinary world of the honeybee and then taste the fruits of their labours at the Osteria Alpina, a meeting place for the whole community. Elena, the resident chef will welcome you wholeheartedly and you can relax and enjoy a cuisine based on locally produced ingredients and which mark out the gastronomic identity of the place. You’ll soon become aware of all that animates the various localities and feel right at home.
In fact a communal “Albergo” is being created here where visitors can sleep in shared rooms or choose to stay in one of the community’s small houses and really get to know what village life and its territory is all about. Only then can you really become part of a great community project: “Val Codera’s wide-reaching hospitality”. An enterprise arising from the work and commitment of the Association of the Friends of Val Codera, and the School of Sustainable Agriculture, and of course a fine team of volunteers who spend a deal of their time at Codera itself. Plotting the future.
