Mining Museum - Location Ridanna

Once, on the South Tyrolean Monteneve area there was the highest permanent settlement of Europe. Already in the 13th century, the "good silver of Monteneve" was mentioned in written documents. For 800 years, workers mined at more than 2,300 m a.s.l. - on the mountain ridge between the Val Passiria valley near Merano and the Val Ridanna valley in the upper Valle Isarco valley - for silver, lead and zinc. Only in 1985 the mine was closed definitively. In Masseria (Maiern) however, down in the valley, a state-of-the-art ore processing plant was created, which was in operation for 150 years, until 1979. A unique monument to the industrial revolution!

These two out of the four locations of the South Tyrol Museum of Mining - Monteneve and Ridanna - were combined to a museum complex. Here you can discover 800 years of mining history: the single steps of minery are represented, such as the extraction, the treatment and the transport. During the guided visits, the facilities are put in train for demonstration. In the Location Ridanna - "Standort Ridnaun" in German, "Sede di Ridanna" in Italian - you can visit the permanent exhibition as well as a 200 metres long show mine, or walk along the "Obere Erzstrasse" theme trail, following the longest ore conveyor system above ground.

You can choose between several tours. And how to reach it? The facility is located in Masseria in the Val Ridanna valley, approx. 16 km away from Vipiteno, and offers a parking space. Also bus line no. 312 (Vipiteno - Val Ridanna valley) stops there. By foot, however, you can reach the Ridanna Mine along the "Obere Erzstrasse" theme trail, starting in Mareta (3.5 hours).