The rafts set out from Perarolo: here the Boite flows into the Piave, and for centuries, from the middle of the fourteenth century onwards, the timber of the Cadore woods went down this way to Venice. Above the village stood the cìdolo, a structure found only in the Cadore: a barrier that stopped the trunks carried by the current while letting the water through, so that the sawmills below were supplied at a steady rate.
The parish church is dedicated to San Nicolò, patron of the raftsmen, but the village struggled to keep it standing: rebuilt in 1862, it cracked after the floods of the Boite in 1882, was demolished in 1897, and the foundations of the new one began to slide towards the torrent within months. The timber trade ended with the new century and with the arrival of the railway in 1913; in the nineteen-eighties a new viaduct on the trunk road left Perarolo off the map.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Perarolo di Cadore
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Places to see within 25 km
Outside Perarolo di Cadore, but an easy day trip away.