9Curon Venosta, Bolzano
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A suggestive landscape in which a lake swallowed a village from which only the bell tower emerges. The vision is absolutely enchanting. The ancient village of Curón was submerged in 1950 under Lake Resia and is located in the province of Bolzano in the northernmost part of the country. When you are in front of the monumental bell tower that emerges from the lake, you remain silent. It is an image as powerful as it is evocative. Then the innumerable questions begin to emerge followed by the desire to dive to explore what is hidden, because this story can perhaps be defined in one word: destruction. And here we tell you. In this place there were originally three natural lakes: the Curon lake and the Resia lake, separated by a strip of land and further south the San Valentino alla Muta lake, and two towns, Curon and Resia, located on the banks of the lakes with the same name. The construction of these towns and their churches dates from the 14th century. Although the threat about the construction of a dam in these lakes existed since the times when Val Venosta still belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it is not until 1939 that the threat begins to become a reality. In that year the Italian State granted the Montecatini company the construction of the dam that would link the Curon and Resia lakes, raising the water level to 22 meters, which would lead to the destruction and submergence of both towns, Curon and Resia. Although with the beginning of World War II the project was abandoned, at the end of it and with a totally devastated and repressed people in a border area of ​​countries in conflict – Lake Resia is 7 minutes from the border with Austria and 26 from the tripartite border between Austria, Switzerland and Italy – the Montecatini company announced, in 1947, the continuity of the construction of the artificial lake that would flood Curon and Resia. Click the next ARROW to see the next photo!
