Terme di Levico e Vetriolo

Terme di Levico e Vetriolo draws bicarbonated arsenical and ferruginous spring water from the mountains above Levico Terme in the Valsugana of Trentino, where the waters, among the most mineralised in Italy, were systematically developed in the nineteenth century under Habsburg patronage when the Austrian imperial family adopted the resort as their preferred summer destination in the Italian Alps. Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination in Sarajevo in June 1914 triggered the First World War, was a regular guest at Levico, and the monumental park of ancient sequoias, cedars, and exotic conifers planted to frame the imperial promenade still surrounds the thermal buildings, their century-old canopies creating an atmosphere of Austro-Hungarian grandeur in a town that fell to Italy only in 1918. The arsenical iron waters of Levico and Vetriolo, long associated with relaxation and the comfort of the body, retain a mineral specificity that distinguishes them from the broader Alpine region and maintains Levico's identity as one of Italy's most characterful thermal destinations.