On the road linking Garda and Valvestino lakes, the journey itself it’s a show!
Green coves and impending rocks chasing each other and finally reflecting in the artificial Valvestino lake.
A fjord wedging amongst mountains, where waters and vegetation melt together. The lake is created by the Ponte Cola dam, 400’ high and built in 1962 by ENEL (National Electricity Company), downstream feeding the ENEL Green Power electricity production plant in Gargnano. The pumped storage power station power is 137 MW, the yearly production is 80 GWh, corresponding to the average consumption of around 30,000 domestic users.
The lake’s emerald waters with their breath-taking nuances, fload out the old Italian custom, witnessing suggestive past times. Valvestino was actually part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and it represented a wedge of particular strategic interest. When decreasing, sometimes the waters give back the old building, surfacing wall ruins and ancient foundations, seeming to whisper the history leading to world war 1st and to a unified country, as we know Italy nowadays.
In Lignago still there is the plaque marking where the former border between Italy and Austro-Hungary was.
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Visit Val Vestino
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