Alta Badia spreads out at the foot of the Sella Group, in the sunny basins of the Val Badia dotted with traditional farmsteads. Corvara, Colfosco, La Villa, San Cassiano, and Badia are the villages that make up the area, watched over by the unmistakable silhouette of the Sass Songher and, higher up, by the walls above three thousand metres of the Lavarella and the Conturines. The landscape is open and luminous, and the grassy plateaux of the Pralongià and the Piz La Ila seem designed for unhurried walking.
This is one of the strongholds of Ladin identity: the great majority of residents speak Ladin, a language that lives in schools, institutions, and place names. In San Cassiano the Museum Ladin Ursus Ladinicus preserves the remains of a prehistoric bear found in the Conturines cave, while the historic farmsteads — some documented for centuries — tell the story of a tenacious farming world that has not surrendered. Here, tradition is not folklore for show but a shared way of life.
Over recent decades Alta Badia has built a gastronomic reputation unrivalled in the Dolomites, bringing the ancient flavours — from Knödel dumplings to barley soup — into dialogue with the creativity of award-winning chefs. In winter it is all wide, sun-drenched skiing, with the Sellaronda circuit within easy reach and the fearsome Gran Risa run in La Villa igniting the World Cup giant slalom every December. Few places manage as this one does to place high altitude and haute cuisine so comfortably side by side.
