Sbarai Oasis stretches over 30 acres on the shores of Lake Santa Croce, in the Belluno region. It is an extensive wet area featuring a number of different environments related to variations in the lake's water level. It is an ideal habitat for the wintering of many species of birds like Grebes, Lapwings, Penduline tits, Grey Herons, and white Storks. The oasis is reached via an easy flat trail, along which you can admire splendid specimens of monumentally large white willows. The two rural villages next-door, Bastia and Sitran, are worth a look.
Do not miss the famous bicycle tree of Sitran, a chestnut tree nearly a century old that has incorporated an old two-wheeler inside its trunk, so that it is intermingled with its branches. "The story goes that in Sitran there was a farmer who was able to buy a bicycle, his pride and wealth, in the early twentieth century.
Whenever he went out in the fields to cut grass, he always took it with him and leaned it on the nearby chestnut tree. Years passed and the bicycle became old and tattered.
The farmer, not having the heart to throw it away, on a day in 1952, decided to hang it on a dry branch of the chestnut tree, without imagining that, over time, the tree and the bicycle would become one body and one soul. Forever" - from The Notebook of Trees ancient and legendary by Paola Fantin (Published by Kellermann).
Don't miss the famous bicycle tree in Sitran, a chestnut almost a century old that has continued to grow around an old bike in its trunk, which has almost become a part of the plant itself.
To be travelled on foot.