Exploring this territory is a pendulum of emotions between effort, discovery and rest. The mountain has never been merely landscape, it has also been stronghold and identity. Reaching the Towers of Fraele makes us aware of how history transforms places and people.
Built in 1391 to protect the territory of Alta Valtellina from possible invasions, the Towers were once part of a larger fortification, now destroyed. Their position gave them an important strategic role, situated as they were at almost two thousand metres above sea level (1,930 to be precise), along the Via Imperiale d’Alemagna, one of the main roads for commercial trade between Bormio and the Engadine.
Starting from the Towers of Fraele, you can follow a trail that skirts Lake Cancano and circles Lake San Giacomo. An ideal route for mountain biking, as it presents no particular difficulties and has very little elevation change. The dams visible from here were built between the 1940s and 1950s and are still used today for the production of hydroelectric energy.
Since the sixteenth century, farmers would pool their milk to collectively produce Valtellina Casera PDO in the village dairies, starting a model of cooperation and sharing that endures to this day.
