Facciamo Un'Escursione Gira a Lago di Braies

September 20, 2018

Lago di Braies

We left Valpolicella around 9:30 a.m. for the last leg of our Italian adventure - into Trentino Alto-Adige. I was really excited because this was the part of the trip that I was looking forward to the most. Specifically, I was excited about visiting the marvelous Lago di Braies, which Anton Schwingshackl aptly described in the following quote: “Lake Braies is so beautiful, changing and yet always beautiful; its charms are so varied that no advertisement could ever describe it as it really is. No photographer will ever come close to capturing its perfection.”

Trentino Alto-Adige is one of five constitutionally created autonomous regions in Italy, with the other four being Sardinia, Sicily, Aosta Valley, and Friuli-Venezia Giulia. It’s made up of two provinces - Trento and Bolzano (i.e., South Tyrol). Between the 800s and 1919, it was controlled by the Austro-Hungarian Empire and its predecessors, so the majority of the population in the province speaks German instead of Italian. It only came into Italian hands as a result of World War I. The Austrian and Italian armies were constantly engaged in combat in the area, and the Austrian defeat allowed the Italians to seize control. Italy’s annexation of Trentino Alto-Adige was then formalized by the Treaty of Saint-Germain.

Kati, Witten, and Me Around Lago di Braies

Lago di Braies a/k/a Pragser Wildsee, is in the Prags Valley of the Dolomites. It spans approximately 77 acres and reaches a depth of 118 feet. The lake is a pristine blue-green that is characteristic of the alps, and crystal clear. The locals explain the name “Pragser Wildsee” through an interesting legend. As the story goes, long ago, the mountains in the area were filled with gold and inhabited by wild men. One day, a group of heardsmen from to the valley to graze their flock and the wild men introduced them to gold by presenting them with rings and chains. The heardsmen became greedy and started stealing gold from the wild men, so the wild men broke open a spring that flowed from the depths of the mountain to form a pool between the mountains that rose so high up the cliff sides that it barred the heardsmen’s access to the high pastures and prevented them from stealing any more gold. The lake that the wild men had created was called the Wild Lake, or “Wildsee,” and the heardsmen’s valley was called “Pragser Tal.” Thus, the lake was known from that day forward as “Pragser Wildsee.”

There are not any motorized boats allowed on the lake. Rather, those seeking to explore the lake can rent wooden rowboats from a boat house that was built on stilts above the lake over a hundred years ago. That’s the same time that the Hotel Pragser Wildsee - a magnificent stone building gracing the shore of the lake - was completed (1898). The hotel is so splendid that, when the crown prince Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Este visited it in 1910, he was so taken that it decided to spend several weeks as a guest there.

Hotel Pragser Wildsee is also famous for playing a unique role during World War II. In late April 1945, during the closing weeks of the war in Europe, the Nazi authorities gave orders to move 141 high-profile prisoners from Dachau Concentration Camp to Innsbruck, Austria, and then down to a hotel near Bozen, Italy. Dozens of troops from the SS and SD guarded the transport, which was composed of a variety of old trucks and buses carrying the camp’s most important and prominent family members. The officers in charge of the transport had orders to kill the prisoners if there was any fear of capture, or if liberation by the advancing Allies became imminent. The German troops in South Tyrol, however, took the inmates into protective custody and the entire group was put up in the Pragser Wildsee until they were eventually liberated by U.S. troops in May 1945.

Hiking Around Lago di Braies

We arrived at Lago di Braies around 1:30 p.m. and were promptly greeted by a large, black Newfie named Happy. The man at the desk had a great sense of humor. He was also shocked that we were American and said that this past year they have seen more Americans coming to the lake than he had seen in the past decade. It appears that Instagram has drawn tons of new visitors to a beautiful locale that was previously rather unknown outside of the immediate surrounding countries. It’s a shame, but it’s also kind of how I found out about Braies - from photographs posted by a few of my favorite photographers.

After checking in, we grabbed a few beers and a late lunch before going for a nice hike around the lake. The hike was approximately 2.2 miles and included around 210-feet in elevation change, which isn’t a ton. It was not, however, the really easy walk that we had anticipated and my dad and Kati were not thrilled with the unexpected difficulty of some sections. Regardless, it was truly a beautiful walk and a great way to spend the afternoon.

Our stay at Pragser Wildsee includes half-board, meaning that breakfast and dinner are included. We were given an assigned table for dinner and required to be seated between 7:00 and 8:30 (though dinner lasted substantially longer than that). Our first dinner was a four-course meal consisting of a nice salad bar, our choice of three soup/pasta dishes (bean soup, spätzle, or spaghetti carbonara), our choice of three meat dishes (deer goulash, roast beef in a brown sauce, or some sort of fish dish), and a traditional cake from the area (i.e., a funnel cake) for dessert, though Witten opted for vanilla gelato with a chocolate straw. The food was good, but left something to be desired when compared to many of our other meals. I did, however, love the formal and relaxed feeling of a set, extended dinner and, surprisingly, Witten was outstanding and made it through the entire dinner without needing to be put to bed (though she also did a lot of running around).