Poschiavo

From the 17th century, many Poschiavini emigrated and became renowned confectioners and café owners across Europe — in Madrid, Barcelona, and Porto. The most successful returned and built magnificent palazzi on the town's southern outskirts. The Spaniolenviertel ('Spanish Quarter') is a striking 120-metre row of villas designed by Venetian architect Giovanni Sottovia. Antonio Semadeni, a pastry chef who made his fortune in Poland, built the Casa Console in 1856, now a museum housing over 100 paintings.

The Brusio spiral viaduct, opened 1 July 1908, is a nine-arched stone structure forming a complete 360-degree loop, 110 metres long with a 70-metre radius — one of the most iconic railway structures in Europe. The Bernina line was built 1906-1910 by thousands of Italian workers. It climbs from 429 m (Tirano) to 2,253 m (Ospizio Bernina) without rack-and-pinion, using adhesion traction on gradients up to 7%. In July 2008, the line was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Cavaglia Glacier Garden at 1,693 m contains remarkable marmitte dei giganti ('giants' pots') — cylindrical holes ground into bedrock by glacial meltwater over thousands of years. Carved by the retreating Palü Glacier during the last ice age, the site is a 10-minute walk from the Bernina railway station at Cavaglia. Since July 2021, a new pathway through the gorge reveals additional formations. Entry is free, with guided visits offered regularly.

The Reformation arrived in Poschiavo between 1547 and 1549, brought by Giuseppe della Rovere and former papal nuncio Pier Paolo Vergerio. Initially both communities shared the church of San Vittore. After turmoil, a formal agreement in 1642 gave the Reformed community the right to build the Chiesa della Santissima Trinità, in exchange for renouncing claims to shared Catholic churches. This Protestant-Catholic coexistence has lasted nearly four centuries — a remarkable record of religious tolerance in the Alps.

The Bernina line climbs from 429 m (Tirano) to 2,253 m (Ospizio Bernina) without rack-and-pinion — the highest railway crossing of the Alps. The 61 km line includes 13 tunnels and 52 viaducts. It was electrified from the start at 750 V DC. The Alp Grüm station (2,091 m), accessible only by train or on foot, offers a 180-degree panorama of the Palü Glacier and Val Poschiavo. Val Poschiavo drops 1,775 metres from the Bernina Pass to the Italian border, creating an extraordinary climate gradient.

Lago di Poschiavo is a natural lake at 962 m, 2.5 km long, 85 m deep, formed by massive rockslides that created a natural dam. Between 1904 and 1907, it was converted into a reservoir for the Campocologno hydroelectric station — at the time Europe's largest high-pressure plant, with a 418 m drop height. The water level varies by up to 7 metres. The lake is fed and drained by the Poschiavino river. The company founded in 1904 evolved into Repower AG.

Guido Fanconi (1892-1979), born in Poschiavo, became one of the founders of modern paediatrics. As professor and head of the Kinderspital of the University of Zurich from 1929, he made it one of the world's most renowned children's hospitals. Two conditions bear his name — Fanconi syndrome (1936, a renal tubular disorder) and Fanconi anaemia (1927, a hereditary bone marrow failure).

Wolfgang Hildesheimer (1916-1991), regarded as the most important writer of the absurd in 20th-century German literature, discovered Val Poschiavo in 1956 and settled there in 1957 with help from Friedrich Dürrenmatt. He lived in Poschiavo for over three decades, received honorary citizenship in 1982, and wrote major novels including Tynset (1965) — whose narrator cannot sleep — and Marbot (1981) while living in the valley.