Bondone

Fifty kilometres southwest of Trento, on the border with Lombardy, the commune sits in the Valle del Chiese and is made of two settlements at very different heights. The paese occupies a ridge at 720 metres; the frazione of Baitoni lies at 371 metres on the shore below. A rock cliff between the two carries the castle, built by the Lodron counts who controlled the valley from a string of similar fortresses, and who held this one for centuries after it was first recorded as the castrum de summo lacu.

The upper village and the lakeside frazione are administratively one commune but functionally two economies: stone houses and a ridge line above, swimming and sailing on the water below, joined by the fortress that once watched over both. The distance between 720 metres and 371 metres, covered inside a single commune, is what gives Bondone its character: a hill settlement and a lake shore sharing one name and one history, with the old military architecture still standing at the point where they meet.