Worth seeing places - Alta Badia

THE MUSEUM CIASTEL DE TOR

The Ciastel de Tor castle lies in a breathtaking position, on a small hilltop above the picturesque town of San Martino . Inside this beautifully restored medieval construction, the provincial government of Bolzano has founded the new Historic and Cultural Museum of Val Badia.

In Pedraces - Oies area - there is the native home of Father Giuseppe Freinademetz , worshipped by the inhabitants of Val Badia and also of the whole South Tyrol .

The Saint Barbara church. Half an hour from the centre of La Val, there is the little church of S. Barbara , boldly perched on the crest of a cliff; it was built by the Valparola's miners that worked the minerals extracted form the Monte Pore. The Crucifixion painted on the outside wall and the many paintings on the inside walls are of particular historic and artistic value.

The first references to a church in Corvara, dedicated to Saint Catherine, are to be found in documents dating from 1347. The church in its present form was consecrated on the 26th of August 1452 and was the subject of various restoration projects, in 1864, 1910 and 1967. The church was built in the Gothic style, which tended to flood the internal lighting of God's house: in the great cathedrals of the time the multicoloured windows create a transparency on entire wall faces. In this church of more modest dimensions the light penetrates through the windows and the panes to the choir and illuminates an ambience featuring a multitude of Saints. Under a certain light the Saints are brought to the fore, under another they take on a different role, then once more to be brought to the fore.