walser
walser

The Walser

The Land

To walk like a Walser. How many steps did the settler families take before finding their
designated land? They must’ve put so much effort to clear it and make it habitable. For the Walser were entrusted with the most inaccessible territories, those that no one else had been able to make fertile: rugged but authentic lands, where heaven and earth meet in all their beauty, and where even now it’s possible to relive the Walser atmosphere and listen to their
stories.

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territorio

History

The Walser, people on the road. People who began from Valais (their name is a contraction of the German word Walliser, which means inhabitant of the Canton of Valais) and migrated from place to place in the neighboring High Lands, as settlers of the masters who owned the land, yet retaining their own right and structure of identity.

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storia

Anthropized landscape

Even today, the signs of that colonization are perfectly visible in some communities. Knowing them and being able to identify them allows us to design, protect and enhance unique territories.

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paesaggioantrop

Language, culture and tradition

Walser culture reflects an important connection between nature and man, who for centuries have related to each other with mutual and reverential respect. Knowledge made up of great artisan skills, superb construction skills, a dialectical language of identity and other peculiarities typical of these people to be discovered and valued.

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tradizione

Walking through the Highlands

To understand the nature of the Walser tribe, in its extraordinary beauty and complexity, we can rely on the myth of the “Lost Valley” (Verlorene Thal in German), one of the most widespread and popular myths in the Alps, and on a saying, a phrase that encompasses within itself the meaning of being Walser.

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collicammini