Crodo

A holiday resort, mainly during the summer season, Crodo is located in the centre of an area rich in minerals, and perhaps unsurprisingly is home to the famous sparkling non-alcoholic aperitif, Crodino. Its waters flow from three cold springs, from the Oro, Cistella and Liesel valleys. A little further north in the hamlet of Verampio, is the Ettore Conti power plant, with its building elaborately decorated with geometric designs. It was designed by the architect Piero Portaluppi and is one of the oldest in Italy, built in 1912–14. All around are tiny hamlets with fewer than 200 inhabitants, and the typical stone houses. In the hamlet of Cravegna, set in a panoramic position in the woods, stands the Church of St Julius, built in stone with Romanesque-Gothic features. Among the woods stands the solemn and peaceful Oratory of Our Lady of Salera, which is the destination of a devotional trail that starts in Cravegna and reaches the shrine along a mule track with chapels of the Holy Rosary.