Art & Culture

Art, culture and folklore

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  The ancient kilns

  The importance of making bread in Macugnaga and the Anzasca Valley is still visible today in the collective kilns that dot the Via del Pane.
  
  It is a hiking trail that winds through 18 locations - from Macugnaga to Calasca Castiglione - in which ancient structures for baking such as kilns and mills have been preserved.

  The majority of the production of bread in the valley took place with rye flour or panìco (cob mile): in Macugnaga, in the locality of the Old Church, there is one of the best preserved kilns.
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  Walser Fair of San Bernardo

  Alpine crafts and Walser culture meet every year in the month of July in Macugnaga in the traditional appointment with the Fair of San Bernardo.
  
  Founded in 1987 with the intent to recall an ancient fair that took place at the foot of Monte Rosa, the San Bernardo Fair annually attracts more and more tourists.

  In the heart of Macugnaga artisans from all the valleys of Monte Rosa exhibit their creations: from sculptures in wood and stone, to ceramic objects, embroidered fabrics, wrought iron and tools.
  
  Main events of the fair are the Extemporaneous Sculpture Show, which each year awards a craft work in wood, and the International Festival of Mountain Music, during which you can watch the impressive performance of the Alpine Horns.
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  Walser House Museum of Macugnaga

  The Walser House Museum of Macugnaga, hosted by the parish house of the village of Borca, was founded in 1982 as gathering place of the objects of daily use of the Walser people of the Anzasca Valley.
  
  In it there are still today tools and objects in wood, stone and metal, a proof to the dedication of Walser people for work.

  The museum has three floors: the first houses a permanent collection of reproductions of old prints and photographs; on the ground floor there are the kitchen, the entrance and the Stube; finally, on the top floor there are the hall of the traditional crafts, the room used for the production of bread and the one that retains the documents of the Mining Company.
  
  The museum is open all year by appointment at phone number (+39 347 9842329).
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  The Dorf of Macugnaga

  The village of Macugnaga still retains tangible trace of the Walser tradition: in the architecture of its homes, made with the Blockbau system - larch slot in logs - in the traditional costumes worn by the women of the village, in the language spoken by the elders and in the Dorf, the first settlement dating back to 1200.
  
  Points of interest in the Dorf are the cemetery and the Old Church with the ancient lime tree: the first was founded in the second half of the thirteenth century, but over the years has undergone several reconstructions and renovations.

  The fourteenth century Old Lime, in whose shadow there used to be held judicial and administrative meetings, is more than 700 years old. A legend tells that the small lime tree was planted by a woman, at the time of the founding of the village of Macugnaga.
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  The Museum of the Mountain and Smuggling

  The Museum of the Mountain and Smuggling, in Staffa, is housed in a Walser house. The exhibition is divided into three themes united by the common thread of the mountain: an important collection of finds illustrates the mountaineering history of Macugnaga, the section dedicated to smuggling whose aim is to tell the secular history of alpine smuggling,

  which all the border mountains have in common and which now belongs only to the past and a series of documents on the great mountain guide Mattia Zurbriggen (first climber of the Aconcagua) A unique museum in Italy and in Europe that through black and white images memory one of the most characteristic phenomena of the valleys between Italy and Switzerland.

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  Guja Gold mine Museum

  Linked to a bygone era, to an ancient and tiring work is the Guja Gold Mine Museum, located in the Borca hamlet, the first mine in the Alps open to visitors as well as the first mine-museum in Italy.

  Along a fully illuminated 1.5 km route is possible relive the history of a tiring trade and learn the techniques and methods of gold extraction. The Guja mine is accessible to disabled people.