Molveno

Molveno sits at 864 metres on the northern shore of a lake formed by a landslide about 4,000 years ago, held in on one side by the Brenta Dolomites and on the other by Monte Paganella. The village and its historic centre face the water from below the plateau of Pradel, which rises behind it and is reached by cable car, so the two halves of the place, lake shore and high ground, look at each other across the same stretch of blue. The cemetery church stands slightly apart, above the centre, on the same slope.

The lake is second-largest in the region by surface and the deepest in Trentino. The nature park that holds the Brenta group begins right at the western shore, which means the mountains are not a backdrop seen from Molveno but a boundary the village is built against. The result is a place with almost no distance between the water, the settlement and the wild ground above it: the whole of Molveno can be read as a narrow shelf between a deep lake and a limestone wall.