Travel Engadin

We decided to spend Easter in Switzerland to go and see the painted houses of Engadine. Before the border with Switzerland, we made a brief stop in Glurns (Glorenza), a small village in the Upper Venosta Valley which is quite characteristic for the sixteenth century towered walls and for its beautiful old houses .

We arrived in the Engadine through the Fuorn Pass and we crossed all the valley until the village of Sent; then we climbed it visiting all the villages scattered along the side slopes of the valley.

It was magnificent the entrance door decorated with numerous small Easter eggs as well as the facades of many buildings met along the valley. I mention some of the towns: Tarasp, Fontana, Vulnera, Scuol, Ftan Ardez Watch (perhaps the best one), Zuoz.

I wish to briefly illustrate the history of those “paintings ”.

The facades are decorated with a special process called “sgraffito” which dates back to the Middle Ages and was imported from central Italy in 1600.

The images represented in the facades are quite different: from geometric patterns to floral ones, from animal figures to proverbs writing.

Unlike the rest of the Graubünden (or Grisons) canton where there is a predominance of wooden houses, here only the interior of the houses is in wood.

To have a brick house is a reason of pride for the inhabitants of the valley.

Against the rigours of winter the windows are small. Thanks to the windows’ decoration,  the artists “enlarge” the windows giving their best.