Alta Badia (“Hochabtei” in German) lies in a broad, sunny basin in the heart of the Dolomites. Nestled between meadows and forests and surrounded by a 360° panorama of the Dolomite Mountains – the towering cliffs of the Sella, the Sassongher, the Gardenacia and the Kofel Holy Cross Mountain– it offers a truly special holiday experience!
Alta Badia is made up of the 6 villages of Corvara, Kolfuschg, La Villa, San Cassiano, Badia and La Val and is renowned not only for its unique situation and magnificent mountain landscape, but also for its cultural variety.
The natural landscape of Alta Badia
The natural landscape of Alta Badia offers plenty of space for relaxation. The Dolomites and the nature parks of Puez-Geisler and Fanes-Sennes-Prag invite you to enjoy nature and indulge in your favourite hobbies…. Hiking, biking and walking in the summer and skiing, snowboarding, cross-country skiing and winter hiking in the winter!
Alta Badia, land of the Ladins
Dolomite Ladins inhabit the four valleys descending from the Sella peak: Gadertal, also called Val Badia, Grödnertal, Fassatal and Buchenstein. The Ladin language is still spoken and nurtured in all four valleys today.
Archaeological finds at “Sotciastèl” in Pedraces confirm that the Gadertal Valley was already settled in the Bronze Age between the 16th and 13th centuries B.C. These early settlers were most likely pre-indo-European pastoral tribes or Celts, whom the Romans later subsumed under the name “Raeti”.
Ladin, the language of Alta Badia
The Ladin language developed under Roman rule and is a mixture of the Raetian and Latin vernacular. It is only thanks to the high mountain ranges—which restricted communications and even isolated parts of the area—that the Ladin language continued to survive in the valleys around the Sella into the 20th Century. This language, once the most widespread in the Alpine region, still has around 30,000 native speakers today. In the South Tyrol, Ladin is recognised as the third language after German and Italian and is taught as a compulsory subject in schools.
