Val di Fiemme
— — a long white track through the violin forest.
Not only on a wall.
“A valley in Trentino, held between the Latemar to the north and the Lagorai to the south. The Avisio runs down its floor, past Cavalese and Tesero and Predazzo. In winter the cross-country tracks stitch the villages together, and the Marcialonga ski marathon runs the length of the valley every January. The spruce here is the same spruce Stradivari is said to have chosen from the Paneveggio forest, a resonance wood prized for centuries by Cremonese violin makers. The cross-country world came through this winter for the Milano-Cortina Olympics. The studio knows the valley by reputation. People who go come back saying the same word: quiet.
Val di Fiemme, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
Val di Fiemme is a glacier-cut valley of around 30 kilometres in the autonomous province of Trento, in the eastern Italian Alps. The Avisio river runs through it; the main towns of Cavalese, Predazzo, Tesero, and Ziano di Fiemme sit on a high terrace between 900 and 1,000 metres above sea level. The Latemar massif rises to the north, the Lagorai chain to the south, and the Pale di San Martino to the east, all visible from the valley floor. The Latemar and Pale di San Martino are part of the Dolomites UNESCO World Heritage Site, inscribed in 2009. The valley has been governed since the 12th century by the Magnifica Comunità di Fiemme, one of the oldest surviving communal institutions in Europe.
The Paneveggio forest above the upper valley grows the resonance spruce that goes into violins. The Norway spruce (Picea abies) here grows slowly and straight, in a stand whose narrow, even rings carry sound the way a string holds a note. Antonio Stradivari is said to have walked into Paneveggio to choose his violin tops, and Cremonese luthiers still buy single resonance spruces from the Magnifica Comunità di Fiemme. The forest is known to luthiers worldwide as the foresta dei violini. The conditions that grow resonance wood are long cold, slow growth, and an undisturbed canopy. They are also the conditions that hold the valley quiet in winter. Snow stands on the spruce and takes everything that is not the wind.
Winter in Val di Fiemme runs reliably from early December into early April. The valley sits high enough for natural snow on the floor most years, with Cavalese at 1,000 metres and Predazzo near 1,018, and the cross-country trail network is one of the most groomed in the Alps. The Centro del Fondo Lago di Tesero held the cross-country skiing events of the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics earlier this year, the same site that hosted FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in 1991, 2003, and 2013. The Marcialonga, a 70-kilometre classic ski marathon, has run from Moena to Cavalese every last Sunday of January since 1971 and draws around seven thousand skiers. The Tour de Ski finale climbs the Alpe Cermis above Cavalese every January.