Taste Trails | The Via Romea Germanica

Location: The Rotaliana Plain, the Adige Valley, Trento and the Valsugana
Duration: 5 days
Total length: 82 km (excluding taste stops)
Recommended period: spring and autumn

Certified as a “Cultural Route of the Council of Europe” in 2020, here is a trail that exquisitely mixes history with great food and wine. Along its Trentino portion, the Via Romea Germanica overlaps with a wonderful itinerary of flavours as it pairs up with the Trentino Wine and Flavours Route.

Along this itinerary we will cross the Rotaliana Plain - an area renowned for its wine production - and the Valsugana – linked to the production of apples, berries and corn -, passing through the Trento area, a place of choice for the production of the sparkling wine Trentino Metodo Classico.

The Via Romea Germanica has a long and intriguing history: legend has it that Albert of Stade, on his many journeys between Saxony and Rome to meet the Pope, kept careful notes of his travels to and from Italy, putting together a series of detailed journals. In his writings he offers some very useful information for the organising of a journey which, in the 13^th century, was very complex:

He indicated the best stops, which roads to take and even the distances of the individual stages along a route that connected - on Italian soil – the cities of Bolzano, Trento, Padua, Orvieto and of course Rome.

And so, with the aid of this hand-written guide, the route known today as the Via Romea Germanica came to be and covers over 2,000 km between Germany and Italy. Of these, just under 100 km pass through Trentino, along a route that links the hamlet of Cadino near San Michele all'Adige to the town of Grigno in the Valsugana before passing into the Veneto region.

The route thus represents an unparalleled experience that lets us, as modern-day pilgrims, become familiar with the fundamental aspects of this territory, such as the local cultures and scenery without forgetting, of course, its flavours and fragrances!

Indeed, along the Via Romea Germanica we have the opportunity to stop off at the numerous establishments along the Trentino Wine and Flavours Route and put together, one day at a time, our very own experience, discovering and savouring all this land has to offer!

The products you simply can’t miss out on along the way:
Along this Taste Trail we have to try the wines, most notably Teroldego Rotaliano and Trentodoc, the Trentino grappas, the white asparagus of Zambana, not to mention the apples, berries and the characteristic “Spin” maize of the Valsugana.