The landscape that we can admire between Vercelli and Crescentino, particularly during the period of submergence of the rice fields, is truly unique. The Grange seems to rise from the water like small islands and, if we are lucky and the day is clear, we can marvel at the play of light produced by the water and, at the same time, observe the enchantment of a landscape characterized by the snow-capped mountains of the the Alpine arc and the Monferrato hills.
Once in the territory belonging to the municipality of Trino, you will find the Abbey of Santa Maria di Lucedio, founded in 1123, where the Cistercian monks, owners of enormous extensions of land linked to the Grange (i.e. the ancient warehouses and granaries that gave the name to the road itself), they completed, together with the Benedictines of the Abbey of San Genuario di Lucedio, the reclamation and cultivation of this territory which, until that moment, had been covered by impenetrable forests.
The activity carried out by the monks was decisive for the birth and subsequent rooting over the centuries of an agricultural and rice-growing vocation: it was the Cistercians, in fact, who introduced the cultivation of rice in the 15th century, starting from Castelmerlino and Ramezzana. Today this territory is mainly occupied by rice fields, and is recognized by the European Community as the only and vast wetland, still intact in Europe. The Abbey of Lucedio is about 4 kilometers from Borgo Ramezzana.
