Photo 1: The lords of the castle will have to spend some money to fix it!
Of course, with the haste that characterizes the time we live, we don’t have time to visit a ruin of a castle, our attention is always attracted by the beautiful castles with flags that still fly and remember the times when they were inhabited by kings and queens. . But I’ve always been drawn to that ruin, on top of that mountain.
Photo 2: The castle seen from the parking lot of the parish church of Montechiaro
Photo 3: The path leading to the castle entrance
You can see the remains of a tower, a piece of crenellated walls. Once there was a castle that dominated the passage of men and goods in the valley, now they are just stones rolled down from the mountain, or piled one on top of the other at the foot of what were mighty walls. This time I put the arrow on and enter the mountain road, too many times we have passed without stopping @mariacristinafossa and I, we only turned our heads towards the windshield of the car to better see the ruin hidden by the roof of our car.
Photo 4: The entrance to the castle
Photo 5: The tower of the castle
Photo 6: The road inside the walls
Montechiaro Castle (in German Burgruine Lichtenberg) is located on the road between Glorenza and Prato allo Stelvio, an important communication route that leads from Val Venosta to Val Mustair in Switzerland. You go up to the parish church car park and from here, along a small road to be paved, you will soon reach the castle. Here there is no confusion despite being mid-August, the maximum period of holidays in Italy, there are no noises extraneous to those of the woods; the roaring brook, the birdsong, the rustle of the leaves swaying together with the branches pushed by the mountain wind.
Photo 7: vault of the second city wall
Photo 8: The interior of the castle
Photo 9: The small building under restoration
All this solitude takes us to 1200, the century in which the castle is mentioned for the first time in official documents. Peasants who get on oxcarts to bring food to the local Lords, who control everything from above and to whom everything is due. There weren’t many freedoms in those days. The inhabitants of the Stelvio could not hunt freely. They could only hunt with the permission of the Lord and everything they took had to be brought to the castle and sold to the castellans and if no one had bought them, they would have stayed with the Lord who would have given bread, cheese and a chalice of wine to the hunter as a reward, miserable thing. The only obligation of the Lord was to host the population for three days in case of war, after the three days it was all to be decided!
Photo 10: The main street overlooking the Val Venosta
Photo 11: The tower undergoing renovation
Photo 12: The interior of the castle
Here we are inside the castle, inside its thick walls. And I imagine the difficulty in building it, these huge stones transported with animals on wagons or sledges in winter, hooking them with ropes to winches and with the strength of many arms they lift them up to the point where they had to be positioned, stone by stone, one at a time. Sweat, fatigue, bad words through gritted teeth, without being heard, the punishments were terrible.
Photo 13: The painting on the tower: We recognize the eagle symbol of Tyrol, the coat of arms of the counts Khuen Belasi
An external wall has a painting and we discover that the building, now under restoration, was decorated inside with frescoes which, due to the now abandoned conditions of the castle, were detached in the early 1900s and taken to a museum in Innsbruck in Austria, since it was Austrian territory here until 1918. We hope that the ongoing restoration will lead to the possibility of returning the paintings to their place of origin and thus giving a fairer value to the castle.
Photo 14: The Parish Church of Montechiaro under the castle
We go around the castle, through terraces and rooms where the roof is the blue of the sky. We enjoy the panorama of the green cultivated plain of Val Venosta, of apples, vineyards and meadows with the green grass that awaits the August cut. Who knows what it was like almost 1000 years ago? how long did the snow last? how cold it was on the walls with the icy wind coming down from the mountain behind, and who knows how far the glaciers stretched? How could they see so far to stop the passage of armies or bands of brigands?
Photo 15: Back of the castle
Photo 16: Back of the castle
How many questions come to mind just feeling the contact with these old stones, wanting to understand their history and trying not to be just distracted bystanders! We go down to the parking lot, other ruins of castles await us, other thoughts about past lives will accompany us.
@PattyBlack @DeniGu @helga19 @TravellerG @renata1 @Erna_LaBeau @Mukul_Anand @davidhyno @Stephanie_OWL
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with this technology and savings world culture and history 
. It is Very important for us to know about history and tell it to other that how human being travel this journey from nomads to civilised society. It gives and show path 
for humanity to travel from past to f 
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