T he inter ior s and e x ter ior
of the buildin g echo
the old chalet s and
shepher d s’ dwellin gs that
dot the land scape
TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / APRIL 2018 57
with ski slopes, at its highest point. “It was
his gift to the local people,” says Anna Zegna,
Ermenegildo’s granddaughter and the
president of the Fondazione Zegna, the
family’s philanthropic organization.
To design the hotel, Ermenegildo chose
Luigi Vietti, an Italian architect known for the
stylish houses he fashioned for Cortina, a
town in the Dolomites. Both the interiors and
exterior of Vietti’s building, which has
remained largely unchanged since it opened,
echo the old chalets and shepherds’ dwellings
that dot the landscape. Its bedrooms are cozy
spaces lined with the spruce that grows on the
hills; the sitting room and restaurant below
are decked with the horns of the deer and
chamois that roam the mountains. The only
addition has been a spa, which was built in
2014 and expanded in 2016 to add a hot tub
with a view through a giant picture window.
The hotel’s rustic charms draw stressed-
out Milanese looking for Alpine renewal. After
breakfast there one morning, I headed out with
Arturo Ramella, who was born near Bielmonte
in 1963 and now works as a guide in the Oasi.
The resort is an all-purpose playground for
lovers of the outdoors. In winter you can ski
down the slopes or through the valleys, or
explore the network of paths on snowshoes. In
spring and summer you can ride horses, go
rock climbing, or admire the wildflowers that
bloom all over the hills. But Ramella had a
more meditative pursuit in mind for us: he
was taking me “forest bathing.”
The keepers of t he Oasi have a n a lmost
hippieish devotion to trees. For centuries the
forests had been exploited for timber, and the
la nd had become denuded. So Zeg na repla nted
more than half a million specimens. Today
they are harnessed for therapy rather than
fi re. Forest bat hing, a trend t hat or ig inated in
Japan, involves embracing the silence of the
woodland—sometimes literally. As we walked
through the valley, surrounded by firs and
larches, we saw a set of steps leading to a
platform in front of a large beech. A small sign
invited you to hug the tree, and sure enough,
there was a man in a red hat enjoying a
lingering embrace. For anyone who, like me,
finds the idea of absorbing a tree’s “energy”
mildly ridiculous, the forests hold other
treasures. As Zegna’s replanting took hold,
a nima ls t hat had been chased out by t he
logging came back. For the first time in a
hundred years, you can hear the howls of
wolves again.
The landscape is the source of the Albergo
Bucaneve’s culinary pleasures as well as the
Oasi’s natural ones. That evening I sat down
with chef Giacomo Gallina, who is at the start
of his first season at the Albergo, following
stints in Singapore, Paris and Milan, and
whose food is a reason to visit in itself. Gallina
cleaves to a simple rule: he only cooks produce
from the land he can see from the window.
Happily, he can see a long way. Dinner took in
the whole terrain, starting with anchovies
from Liguria’s fish markets before moving on
to veal cheeks from Piedmont, cooked long and
slow, that were soft enough to eat with a spoon.
I was visiting in December, and as I ate, snow
carpeted the Panoramica outside. Cutting into
my chocolate dessert, its rich center oozing out
and saucing a fan of caramelized pears, I
hoped the road would become impassable and
I’d be stuck here for a few more days.bucaneve.eu; doubles from €110.TURIN
1¾ hours by car
COMO
2 hours by car
LOCARNO
2½ hours by car
CHAMONIX
2¾ hours by car
GENOA
3 hours by carThe Albergo
Bucaneve is a
1½-hour drive from
Milan’s Malpensa
Airport. After
a weekend stay in
the Oasi Zegna,
venture to one
of these nearby
destinations.NEXT STOPS