Auronzo di Cadore

The town sits at 864 meters in the Comelico, the northeastern corner of the Cadore, its five kilometers of ribbon shape owed to the dammed Ansiei: the river was closed off in 1930-32 to build a hydroelectric reservoir, and the settlement grew along the water it created. The municipal territory runs from that reservoir up through the surrounding peaks, taking in a high mountain lake to the north and the highest point in the territory to the south, a mountain that anchors one end of the same group ringing the lake. The town itself, away from the water and the peaks, is workmanlike: hotels, a long lakefront, a small mid-nineteenth-century church in the Villapiccola frazione, and a working harbor for the small boats that cross the reservoir.

The territory reads as two halves in balance: a functional, engineered lower town built for hydroelectric power and tourism traffic, and an upper world of high lakes and named summits that draws walkers for a single season each year. The dam gave Auronzo its shape; the mountains around it gave the town its reason to be found.