While people across Europe are being urged to save energy, the Swiss Bavona Valley has never been connected to the grid.
While people across Europe are being urged to conserve energy to avoid power outages this coming winter, Switzerland’s Bavona Valley is not worried and never goes online.
Located in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino in southern Switzerland, the remote glacial valley along the Bavona River is one of the steepest in the Alps.
But there are 12 small villages with stone houses scattered across the rugged valley, which have dozens of inhabitants most of the year, of which less than 10 remain, except in winter.
Eleven small villages are not connected to the grid, although the area generates a lot of electricity thanks to dams located high on the mountaintop.
Romano Dado, a former local council member of the lower valley village of Cevio, said they were built after World War II to provide electricity to German-speaking Switzerland on the northern side of the Alps. The small village depends.
Transformers are needed to bring electricity to the valley, but “the people here don’t have the money,” he told AFP. Only the last village at the very top of the valley can afford such a luxury.
As the valley’s population dropped from 500 people to less than 50 in decades, residents learned to live off the grid by installing solar panels on their fireplaces and rooftops back in the 1980s, Dado said.
Residents also use gas bottles, candles and oil lamps. To wash clothes, “we went to the river, as always,” says Romano’s brother Tiziano Dado, a bricklayer.
About 10 kilometers (6 miles) long, the narrow valley is surrounded by towering slopes over 2,500 meters above sea level, and has been occasionally hit by deadly avalanches, floods and landslides over the centuries.
Sonia Fornera of Orrizonti Alpini, an expert group on Alpine history and culture, said that from March until the end of December, families take their animals to the valley and return for Christmas.
“It’s a hard life, but a simple one,” says Bice Tonini, 88, who warms herself by the fireplace in her home.
Despite her age, she continues to live there from spring until October thanks to her solar panels. — © AFP
At night, street lights do not interfere with her admiring the stars – she prefers evening shows to TV, which is rare in the valley.
Ivo Dado, 81, proudly installed solar panels in 1987.
The former farmer, who is not directly related to the Dado brothers, is pleased that some cities are ditching traditional holiday lighting in December.
Restaurateur Martino Giovanettina believes that the valley is becoming an open-air “museum” rather than being geared towards tourism. — © AFP
“Solar panels are a partial solution,” Martino Giovannitina, a writer and owner of one of the few restaurants in the valley, told AFP.
He argues that the lack of electricity, combined with strict renovation regulations for old buildings, is depopulating the valley, turning it into an open-air “museum” of the past rather than the tourism-oriented one of the neighboring valley.
There are no facilities for tourists at all in the Bavona Valley, except for the cable car from the last village to the dam, and parking for campers is prohibited.
Doris Femminis, winner of the 2020 Swiss Literary Prize, grew up in a valley where she raised goats in her 20s. Now she tells the story of the Bavona Valley in her book.
She now lives in the Jura Mountains in western Switzerland and returns to this “beautiful place of childhood” every two months.
“In Switzerland, we love the idea of having more wild nature spots,” she says, but admits that such places are not suitable for modern life.
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Post time: Oct-13-2022