The Altopiano di Pine' and Valle di Cembra are geographically close to each other, but they are very different in conformation and in traditions, uses and customs. Even the most distracted traveller will notice the contrast between the spacious Pine' highlands and the wild ruggedness of Valle di Cembra, a furrow cut by the Avisio torrent between impervious slopes only impassable in appearance. The Altopiano di Pine' is known especielly for the Mountain Sanctuary where Mary appeared to a shepherdess and it has been the destination of pilgrims and a place of prayer for over 250 years. One is struck by the spiritual atmosphere breathed here in this day and age. Villages and hamlets, some with just a few houses, are scattered all over the green highlands in the centre of which two lakes, Serraia and Piazze, gaze at the sky with large cobalt-blue eyes from among the fir trees. A festival of nature completed with humid and peat conservation areas like Laghestel, a natural beauty and landscape reserve. If gentle best describes the Pine' highlands, harsh is the most fitting word for Valle di Cembra with its steep gorges of porphyriitic rock. It is an environment where no imagination is needed to understand the toil and sacrifice man has had to bear living and and working in a niggardly agricultural area like this. The sides of the mountains, almost down to the pebbly banks of the torrent, are made of terraces where vines have always been cultivated, chiefly Muller Thurgau and Schiava, to produce a really top quality wine. Until a few years ago the farmers carried the soil, for the trellised vines, in baskets on their backs up the steps from one terrace to another. This endless job had to be repeated after every violent thunderstorm that washed away the soil from the side of the mountain. The porphyry, called "red gold", quarried from the mountains and exported all over the world, has made up for the agricultural poverty. Valle di Cembra is also famous for the Segonzano Pyramids, called "Omeni", pinnacles of earth tens of metres high, standing erect like sentinels, incredibly sculpured by natural erosion over thousaands of years. The valley is also renowned for its grappa which, until a few years ago, was distilled in the cellars of the humble dwellings. Sometimes the stills were taken to the woods, just outside the villages, during the night because making grappa was prohibited. People from all over Trentino climbed to Cembra to buy the legendary grappa. Along with those stills a part of the history of our land has disappeared.