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12 WATERMILLS · VICENZA
Walk past 12 watermills in a row, then follow the trail towards a Neanderthal cave
A 10 km walk through a historic mill valley, limestone hills and one of Vicenza’s major prehistoric caves
Twelve watermills lined up along one stream, wooden wheels and millstones beside old houses, artificial channels built for water power, then limestone caves above with evidence of Neanderthal life.
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Claudio Gioseffi, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Know before you go
The full San Bernardino loop is about 10 km with roughly 400 metres of ascent. Allow around four hours. The mill valley itself is freely accessible; trail conditions can change after heavy rain. Not suitable for strollers. The valley itself is free to access. Some mill interiors are private or accessible only during guided visits and special openings, so the everyday experience is primarily the path, waterworks, buildings and surviving wheels. Guided programmes can include access to selected mills. Mossano also celebrates its milling history with the local Festa dei Mulini, traditionally centred on Mulino Dalla Pozza. The complete loop towards Grotta di San Bernardino is about 10 km with roughly 400 metres of ascent and takes around four hours. The mill valley itself is freely accessible, while conditions on the upper trail can change after heavy rain.
About
THE STORY
About 20 km south of Vicenza, Mossano is a small village on the eastern side of the Berici Hills, where limestone, springs and cultivated slopes replace the flat plain.
From the village, a cobbled lane drops into Contrà dei Munari, literally the “hamlet of the millers”. For centuries, twelve watermills worked here one after another along the same narrow valley. Water from the Fontana spring and the Scaranto stream was diverted into an artificial channel, the Roggia Munari, then passed from wheel to wheel before continuing downhill.
The mills ground grain until the decades after the Second World War, and an entire micro economy developed around them, with blacksmiths maintaining the machinery and wheelwrights repairing the carts used to transport flour and cereals. Several buildings survive, together with millstones, water channels and old wooden wheels. At Mulino Mucchietto, the restored wooden wheel can still be seen moving with the water.
THE WATER SYSTEM
The mills make more sense once you follow the water. The stream passes under small bridges and beside old mill houses, while artificial channels divide and redirect the flow towards the wheels. The local word rosta refers to these small water channels, part of the engineering that allowed twelve mills to work along the same valley.
Several millstones remain beside the houses. At Mulino Mucchietto, the large restored wooden wheel is still in working order.
KEEP WALKING
CAI
Trail 81, the San Bernardino Trail, continues above the mill valley towards natural caves known locally as covoli. The most important is the Grotta di San Bernardino, where University of Ferrara excavations documented Neanderthal occupation and what archaeological sources describe as one of the oldest known hearths of its kind. Scientific research has also identified here the earliest evidence of Levallois stone tool production so far known on the Italian Peninsula.
So within one Mossano walk you can move from nineteenth and twentieth century water engineering back into the Middle Palaeolithic, all because the same limestone landscape provided water below and caves above.
WHY GO
For a Berici Hills walk where the landscape keeps explaining itself: twelve mills lined up on one watercourse, working wooden wheels, millstones beside old houses, artificial channels cut for water power, then caves in the limestone above with evidence of Neanderthal life.
THE WALK
For the mills alone, start in the centre of Mossano and descend into the valley. The longer San Bernardino Trail 81 continues through woodland and towards the caves and viewpoints above the village.
The complete circuit is usually described as roughly four hours, so the mill valley can also be visited as a shorter outing.
DIRECTIONS
From Vicenza, drive south towards the Berici Hills and Mossano, around 20 km from the city.
Park near the parish church in the centre of Mossano. With the church on your right, continue for about 100 to 200 metres, then take the cobbled lane descending on the left. That descent leads directly into the Valle dei Mulini and Trail 81.
Old Vicenza had a word for fireflies. It sits beside the local words for gleaming and brightness in an 1876 dictionary.
The Vicenza Lexicon →