Alleghe

Alleghe sits at 979 meters in the Agordino, the deep Cordevole valley that cuts into the Dolomites south of Cortina. The valley funnels the river past steep slopes prone to fire and rockfall, which is why the parish church on the lakefront has been rebuilt more than once.

The lake itself is the town's defining feature and its stranger fact: this is a body of water that did not exist before 11 January 1771, when part of Monte Piz let go and dammed the Cordevole, burying the villages of Riete, Fusine and Marin. Alleghe as it stands today occupies ground that the slide created. Four kilometers up the valley toward the Marmolada lies Caprile, which had been the commercial center of the Agordino before the slide and lost that standing once the lake formed and the newer settlement grew around it. The ski domain that carries the mountain's name opened to the public in the 1980s, linking Alleghe over the Forcella Staulanza to Zoldo and Selva di Cadore, and hockey has been the town's other pursuit, played for decades on the lake ice itself before the sport moved indoors.

What holds the place together is that geology, not settlement history, decided where the town would sit and what it would be called on to survive.