La Val
La Valle (Ladin: La Val; German: Wengen) is a municipality in Val Badia, in the province of Bolzano, set in the Val di Spescia, in...
Updated 17 July 2026
This season · July · Summer
What to do in La Val now
The story
The story of La Val
La Valle in Val Badia, between the Wengental and the Dolomites
The municipality of La Valle occupies the Val di Spescia, in Ladin Wengertal, a lateral branch of Val Badia that breaks off eastward from the main course of the Gadera stream. The municipal territory, covering about 39 square kilometres, borders Badia, Mareo and San Martino in Badia and ranges from just over 1,100 metres to nearly 3,030 metres at the Zehner, the highest peak of the Fanes group, which dominates the landscape together with the nearby Neuner. The main settlement, gathered around the parish church of San Genesio, sits at about 1,350 metres, while the rest of the population lives scattered in farmsteads and small clusters on the sunlit slopes. La Valle belongs to the Alta Badia tourism area and is its most understated municipality, least affected by mass tourism, remaining set apart from the valley's main roads and ski resorts, a factor that has helped preserve intact its farmed landscape and its identity as a mountain village.
The Ladin Language and Culture
La Valle holds a distinctive record: with over 96 percent of residents declaring Ladin as their mother tongue, it is the municipality with the highest share of Ladin speakers in the whole of South Tyrol, ahead of the other four municipalities of Val Badia, which together form one of the most cohesive cores of the Dolomitic Ladin language area. Ladin here is not a dialect but a recognised Romance language, the third official language of the municipality alongside Italian and German, taught in schools and present in signage, administrative documents and religious life. The community venerates Saint Genesius as its patron, celebrated on 25 August, to whom the parish church is dedicated. This strong linguistic cohesion is reflected in a living cultural identity, made of traditions, mountain cuisine and a close relationship with the land that still shapes daily life in the village today, felt with particular intensity precisely because La Valle has remained more secluded than other Val Badia centres more deeply transformed by tourism.
The Viles, Ancient Ladin Rural Settlements
The settlement pattern of La Valle is defined by the viles, the typical Ladin rural hamlets that dot the slopes above the valley floor of the Wengental. Each vila groups a handful of farmhouses and their barns around shared facilities, such as a communal bread oven, granary, fountains and watering troughs, evidence of an agricultural way of life built on the pooling of resources among families. This settlement model, widespread throughout Val Badia but particularly well preserved in La Valle, has resisted the pressure of tourist development better than elsewhere precisely because of the municipality's secluded position, far from lift systems and large hotels. It is no accident that, since the summer of 2015, La Valle was the first village in South Tyrol to obtain certification as a hiking village, a recognition that highlights lesser-known trails and unassuming car parks at the edge of the village, in keeping with the rural character that still distinguishes its viles today.
Fanes-Sennes-Braies Natural Park and the Armentara Meadows
A large part of the municipal territory of La Valle lies within the Fanes-Sennes-Braies Natural Park, one of the largest protected areas in the Dolomites, part of the Dolomites UNESCO World Heritage site. Within it lie the Armentara meadows, a high-altitude plateau reachable on foot along the Tru di Pra trail, known throughout Europe for the extraordinary richness of flowers and plant species that bloom there from June to late summer. Higher up, toward the small lakes of Rit and Valacia, trails climb to the Fanes plateau, the wild heart of the park, among Dolomite rock walls, high-altitude pastures and mountain huts. The landscape reflects the dual nature of the municipal territory, rugged and mountainous higher up, gentle and cultivated in the valley floor, and offers a wide choice of hiking routes graded by difficulty, starting directly from the small car parks scattered around the village, with no need for lift systems.
History, Traditions and the Rumestluns Spring
The earliest written records of the village date to 1225-1230, when it is mentioned as Twenge, under the jurisdiction of the Benedictine monastery of Sonnenburg, which administered much of Val Badia for centuries. The old parish church dedicated to San Genesio is documented from 1382, while the current neoclassical building was consecrated in 1876; the Barbara chapel, from 1491, recalls an old local mining tradition, of which few other traces remain today. In 1928, under fascism, La Valle lost its administrative autonomy and was merged into San Martino in Badia, becoming an independent municipality again only in 1964. A curious chapter of local history concerns the Rumestluns spring, a sulfurous and slightly radioactive water documented from 1793 and used from the 19th century onward at a small spa establishment, visited among others by the physicist Max Planck; today the restored spring can still be visited along a trail near the village. Alongside this memory, La Valle keeps alive its craft traditions linked to woodworking and mountain farming.
Not to be missed
- The Armentara meadows along the Tru di Pra trail
- The viles, traditional Ladin rural hamlets scattered across the slopes
- The Rumestluns spring, a historic sulfur spa source
- The parish church of San Genesio
- A hike in the Fanes-Sennes-Braies Natural Park toward the Rit lakes
To see
What to see in La Val
Routes · Trovido Route
