Lagarina Valley ( it, Vallagarina, german: Lagertal) is a valley in northern Italy, used to define the lower mountain course of the Adige River. It is mostly included in the province of

Trentino Trentino ( lld, Trentin), officially the Autonomous Province of Trento, is an autonomous province of Italy, in the country's far north. The Trentino and South Tyrol constitute the region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, an autonomous region ...

, with the lower section being part of the

province of Verona The Province of Verona ( it, Provincia di Verona) is a province in the Veneto administrative region of Italy. On its northwestern border, Lake GardaItaly's largestis divided between Verona and the provinces of Brescia (Lombardy region) and Trenti ...

. The largest town is

Rovereto Rovereto (; "wood of sessile oaks"; locally: ''Roveredo'') is a city and ''comune'' in Trentino in northern Italy, located in the Vallagarina valley of the Adige River. History Rovereto was an ancient fortress town standing at the frontier b ...

Geography

The upper limit of the valley is generally set at the so-called "Murazzi", north to

Besenello Besenello (''Besenèl'' in local dialect) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in Trentino in the northern Italian region Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, located about south of Trento. It is located at the entrance of the Vallagarina. The main attracti ...

and about south to

Trento Trento ( or ; Ladin and lmo, Trent; german: Trient ; cim, Tria; , ), also anglicized as Trent, is a city on the Adige River in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol in Italy. It is the capital of the autonomous province of Trento. In the 16th centu ...

. Above this it is known as

Val d'Adige The Etschtal, it, Val d'Adige or Valle dell'Adige, italic=no, is the name given to that part of alpine valley of the Adige in Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy, which stretches from Merano to Bolzano and from Salorno to Rovereto. South of Rovereto, ...

. The lower limit is the entrance in the

Padan Plain The Po Valley, Po Plain, Plain of the Po, or Padan Plain ( it, Pianura Padana , or ''Val Padana'') is a major geographical feature of Northern Italy. It extends approximately in an east-west direction, with an area of including its Venetic ex ...

, near the ''Chiusa di Ceraino''. As with the Val d'Adige, the Vallagarina is of glacial origin. Orographically, it separates the

Brescian Eastern Lombard is a group of closely related variants of Lombard, a Gallo-Italic dialect spoken in Lombardy, mainly in the provinces of Bergamo, Brescia and Mantua, in the area around Cremona and in parts of Trentino. Its main variants are Be ...

and Gardesane Prealps to the west from the

Venetian prealps The Venetian Prealps (''Prealpi Venete'' in Italian) are a mountain range in the south-eastern part of the Alps. They are located in Triveneto, in the north-eastern part of Italy. Geography Administratively the range is divided between the Ita ...

to the east. Castello di Avio vanaf de Autostrada del Brennero

History

The valley is home to several forts built by the

Austrian Empire The Austrian Empire (german: link=no, Kaiserthum Oesterreich, modern spelling , ) was a Central-Eastern European multinational great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the realms of the Habsburgs. During its existence, ...

in the 19th century and older

castle A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...

s, such as

Castle of Avio The Castle of Avio (also known as the ''Castle of Sabbionara'', Italian: ''Castello di Avio'', old German: ''Schloß Aue'') is a medieval castle in the ''comune'' Avio, Trentino, northern Italy. It is currently held by the Fondo per l'Ambiente It ...

which dates to the 11th century. In the locality Lavini di Marco, near Rovereto, are several dinosaur footprints attributed to the genera ''

Camptosaurus ''Camptosaurus'' ( ) is a genus of plant-eating, beaked ornithischian dinosaurs of the Late Jurassic period of western North America and possibly also Europe. The name means 'flexible lizard' (Greek (') meaning 'bent' and (') meaning 'lizard') ...

'' and ''

Dilophosaurus ''Dilophosaurus'' ( ) is a genus of theropod dinosaurs that lived in what is now North America during the Early Jurassic, about 193 million years ago. Three skeletons were discovered in northern Arizona in 1940, and the two best preserved ...

''. The same locality is mentioned by

Dante Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: '' ...

in his ''

Inferno Inferno may refer to: * Hell, an afterlife place of suffering * Conflagration, a large uncontrolled fire Film * ''L'Inferno'', a 1911 Italian film * Inferno (1953 film), ''Inferno'' (1953 film), a film noir by Roy Ward Baker * Inferno (1973 fi ...

'' (Canto XII).

External links

Castles in the Lagarina Valley

{{Coord missing, Italy Valleys of Trentino