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A community of five formerly autonomous municipalities thrives in Val di Pèio (also called “Valèta” in the local dialect), in the north-western corner of Trentino. That area is limited by the Ortles-Cevedale Mountain range, on the border with Val Camonica, Valtellina (Lombardy), and Alto Adige. Stretching on 62.000 square miles, it is the largest municipality in Trentino, enclosing a large portion of the Stelvio National Park.

The local economy used to be mainly a forest-pastoral one, except for centuries-old iron mining activities in Comàsine. Since the XVII seventeenth century the natural springs of Pèio has been massively exploited, also at the industrial level for mineral water production.

The museum of Val di Pèio has its core-exhibition inside “Casa Graziòli”; this building (also locally known as “Casa dela Bèga”) is a testament to the evolution of peasant life in the last centuries.
Inhabited until 1991, it was sold to the Municipality in 1998 in order to improve and use it for exhibition purposes. Very few restorations then took place, as the recently-opened museum still retains its ancient look, the collection and the memories of centuries-old relics and poor but dignified activities of the past.

Arranged over three floors and the attic, the exhibition features: two old kitchens with open hearths (“foglar” in the local dialect), two ovens for the bread (“fóren dei panéti”), the bedroom plastered with wood (“sriia fodrada” ) and equipped with a ceramic stove (“fornii a ole”), as well as the peculiar “forèla” – a service window between the kitchen and the “stiia”.

The “Piccolo Mondo Alpino” (“Small Alpine World”) ring itinerary (about two-hour-long) connects Strombiano to Celentino, running among woods and prairies; it’s a stimulating ethnographic, environmental and historical itinerary which includes the XVIII century church of Sant’Antonio, several farms, Molin dei Fèrie (1901), the church of Sant’Agostino (erected in the XIX century), and the votive capital built in 1923.

This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)