nature and surroundings

Andalo is located in the heart of Trentino Alto Adige, about 40 kilometers from Trento at an altitude of 1,050 meters above sea level. Located in a green valley bowl between the Paganella plateau and the Brenta Dolomites in Western Trentino, this primary town is one of the zone's best-equipped tourist sites.  You can vacation here in summertime, thanks to the typically mild and refreshing climate of the Dolomites, or in wintertime, when temperatures plunge to make any and all kinds of winter sports possible. 

At the center of the bowl that connects the valleys of Non and Giudicarie, the first settlements arrived in medieval times, and the orignal "masi" can still be made out despite the town's subsequent urban development. The territorial boundaries are defined by a few first-order natural elements.  To the North is a karst lake that is 1,000 meters long and 200 meters wide; to the East, the slopes of the Paganella, a sizeable mountain chain that shows its western face to the town as it unravels from northeast to southwest for about 15-20 kilometers, separating the Valle dell'Adige from the Brenta massif.  As the latter extends towards the south, it traces the sky with peaks, pinnacles and sheer faces that are famous all over the world, hosting international alpinism for two centuries now.  The Andalo territory is connected to Parco Naturale Adamello Brenta, the largest protected nature area in Trentino with 618 square kilometers that include the mountain groups of Adamello and Brenta.

On June 26, 2009, the natural beauty, unique countryside and geological significance of the Dolomites earned them a place on UNESCO's (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) list of World Heritage Sites. The nine mountain chains of the Dolomites World Heritage Site - as described in the World Heritage Committee Declaration of exceptional universal value - are comprised of a series of extraordinarily beautiful, one-of-a-kind mountain landscapes. Their spectacularly vertical and pearly summits present a world-class variety of extraordinary sculpted forms.  These mountains are also home to a station with inestimable international significance for the Earth sciences.  The quantity and concentration  of widely varying carbonatic formations is unique to the world and, at the same time, the superb exposition of the geological formations reveals a cross-section of marine life from the Triassic period, which followed the largest extinction event ever recorded in the history of life on Earth.

The sublime, monumental landscapes flush with Dolomitic colors and tones has always attracted a multitude of travelers, inspiring countless scientific and artistic interpretations of their value.