A Hike from Val Taleggio to Piani di Artavaggio

Sometimes a food comes first and the place comes later. For us, Taleggio cheese showed up in our lives long before Val Taleggio itself did. Back in the 1990s we remember buying wedges of it at Whole Foods, intrigued by the orange rind and the slightly funky smell that promised something interesting inside. If someone had told us then that decades later we would be walking in the very valley where that cheese originated, we probably would have laughed. Yet here we are, boots on the trail in Val Taleggio, hiking toward the high meadows of Piani di Artavaggio.

  

View of Pizzino from just above Reggetto trail 150.

The tracks from Reggetto (Val Taleggio) to Piani di Artavaggio.

Monte Sodadura - Piani di Artavaggio (Lecco).

Overview

Length: 15.9 km
Duration: 4.5 hours (not including lunch, this time is up and back)
Elevation: 911 m, start point 960 m, highest point 1860 m
Location: Italy, Bergamo, Val Brembana, Val Taleggio

Notes

Today we took a hike from Val Taleggio to the Piani di Artavaggio. Val Taleggio is in the Province of Bergamo and Piani di Artavaggio is in the Province of Lecco.

Val Taleggio is a valley reachable from Val Brembana. From Bergamo you pass through San Pellegrino (perhaps you’ve heard about its water 😉) and continue up valley to the next town San Giovanni Bianco and take a sharp left and head west. After a few kilometers, you enter what is called in Italian Orrido della Val Taleggio or the Val Taleggio Ravine, a 3-km-long gorge carved by the Enna River.

Most people arrive at the Piani di Artavaggio via the Artavaggio cable car (from Moggio) as we did when we were last here hiking in August of 2023. (See Hiking Between Piani di Artavaggio and Piani di Bobbio.)

The “piani” of Piani di Artavaggio refers to the high meadows or alpine plains that characterize this area. Artavaggio could be a medieval Lombard or pre-Latin name describing a rocky, high pasture or a pasture associated with a person named Arto/Harto.

The CAI Bergamo Trail 150 is a mix of trails and dirt farming roads and isn’t the common way to reach the Piani. With trail 150, you start in Reggetto (Vedeseta), at around 960 m. Then you follow the signs, slowly climbing past summer pastures and serene stone structures in various states of disrepair. Once we reached the Piani, we kept climbing to reach Rifugio Nicola at around 1860 m.

Reggetto is a settlement of 13 full-time people as we learned at the local bar Nonno Fifi run by Fifi’s granddaughter. Fifi has been gone for about 15 years, but the fluorescent green building housing his bar remains as well as a small cheese shop located across from the bar. We couldn’t resist the temptation of getting some cheese where it is produced, so headed over. It’s called Società Agricola Locatelli Guglielmo. And we bought… you guessed it: Taleggio, but also strachítunt – a cheese not well known outside of Italy.

With our haul – our friend called it our bottino in Italian – we started to head back to Bergamo. But we didn’t make it far before we ran into the Coop. Agricola S. Antonio, a local cheese cooperative just below Reggetto. We said hello to the cows and popped inside to buy some yogurt, butter, and formaggella. After that, it really was back to Bergamo.

A carpet of snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis).
Trail 150 Reggetto (Val Taleggio) - pastures and old buildings.
View northeast from Trail 150 above Reggetto into the Orobie Bergamasche.

 
Piani di Artavaggio - vew from below Rifugio Nicola looking southwest toward Monte Resegone.
Trail 150 from Reggetto to Piani di Artavaggio.

  
Trail 150 from Reggetto to Piani di Artavaggio.

Cheese

Why is the area so famous? The answer is simple: pasture, tradition, and geography.

Val Taleggio and the surrounding Bergamasque Prealps have long been ideal terrain for alpine dairy farming. The steep slopes and high summer pastures (alpeggi) mean cattle are moved seasonally from valley farms to higher grazing areas. During the summer months cows feed on diverse alpine grasses and herbs, which in turn influence the flavor of the milk.

That milk becomes cheese.

The most famous product is Taleggio, one of Italy’s oldest soft cheeses, with roots going back at least to the 10th or 11th century. Historically it was called Stracchino, from the Lombard word stracch meaning “tired,” referring to cows returning from summer pastures. The cheese was later named after the valley where it was widely produced. Today Taleggio is a DOP cheese (Denominazione di Origine Protetta), meaning production is regulated and tied to this region.

Less well known internationally—but arguably even more interesting—is Strachítunt. This rare blue cheese originates specifically in Val Taleggio and neighboring valleys. It’s made by layering curds from two different milkings, creating natural blue veining without the industrial inoculation typical of many blue cheeses. Production nearly disappeared in the late 20th century but was revived by a handful of local producers and now holds its own DOP designation.

Walking through Val Taleggio you see why cheese production took root here. Pastures surround nearly every settlement, barns sit tucked into the slopes, and aging stone structures hint at generations of dairy work. The landscape itself feels built for milk and grass.

  
Views from Trail 150 Reggetto (Val Taleggio) to Piani di Artavaggio. Cows graze here starting in June.

Flora

The dominant colors today were late-winter earth brown in the lower parts of the hike or snow white in the upper parts. Piani di Artavaggio was still covered in snow. But that earth brown of the lower parts was punctuated by loads of late winter flowers, the usual but always welcome suspects listed below.

I’m surprised by how many Italians who we go on hikes with ask what this is. It’s one of the easiest to spot in late winter because of the color and shape of the flower. The three-lobed leaf shape and color reminded medieval herbalists of the human liver, and from that came the common name "liverwort". This is when people thought that God marked plants with a signature indicating which organ they could heal.

Spring crocuses are not where saffron comes from. It’s the autumn crocus, Crocus sativus. Spring crocuses have white or yellow stamens compared to Crocus sativus.

The lower regions of this hike, just outside of Reggetto, had some of the most beautiful stands of snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis) that we had ever seen.

[Family] Genus species – {Common names in English; Italian}

[Amaryllidaceae] Galanthus nivalis – {Snowdrop; Bucaneve}
  

[Asteraceae] Petasites albus – {White butterbur; Farfaraccio bianco}
(no photo)

[Asteraceae] Tussilago farfara – {Coltsfoot; Tossilaggine comune}

[Iridaceae] Crocus vernus – {Crocus; Zafferano di primavera}
 

[Primulaceae] Primula elatior – {Oxlip; Primula maggiore}


[Primulaceae] Primula vulgaris – {Primrose; Primula comune}
 

[Ranunculaceae] Anemone nemorosa – {European Wood Anemone; Anemone dei boschi}

[Ranunculaceae] Helleborus niger – {Christmas Rose; Rosa di Natale}
  

[Ranunculaceae] Helleborus viridis – {Green Hellebore; Elleboro verde}
 

[Ranunculaceae] Hepatica nobilis – {Liverwort; Epatica erba trinità}
 

[Thymelaeaceae] Daphne mezereum – {Mezereon; Dafne mezereo o fior di stecco}