Читать книгу Walking in Italy's Stelvio National Park. Italy's largest alpine national park онлайн

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Traditional timber farms in Ultental

The tourist office, supermarket and ATM are located at St Walburg/Santa Valburga, about halfway up the valley. The highest village is St Gertraud/Santa Geltrude. Served all year round by SAD buses, it is the start of Walk 1. There is a grocery shop, café-restaurant, a scattering of hotels and a centuries-old Venetian-style sawmill driven by water. Fully operational until the 1980s, the Lahnersäge now doubles as a Park Information Point. A stroll away stand the Urlärchen, three ancient larch trees that have been there for over 2000 years. A trifle battered and damaged by lightning strikes, they are still the oldest conifers in the whole of Europe. The road ends further uphill at Weissbrunnsee/Lago Fontana Bianca (Walks 2 and 3), one of the many lakes dammed in the 1960s for hydroelectricity to capture the glacier melt.

Forming the southernmost edge of the Stelvio National Park, Val di Sole lies wholly within the Italian-speaking region of Trentino. Although sole means ‘sun’ in Italian, the name is derived from the Celtic goddess of waters, found in abundance here. It runs due west–east from Passo del Tonale beneath glaciated ranges and alongside apple orchards. Malè is the key railway station (FTM Ferrovia Trento Malè trains from Trento to Marilleva), while all the district’s bus services (Trentino Trasporti) fan out from here. Its charming historic centre hosts markets, a wealth of gourmet food shops, hotels, ATMs and a tourist office.