Giant Sequoia Trees of Fennhals

Five gigantic trees line the road up to the Mt. Favogna, the high plateau above Cortaccia. Near the Fennhals Residence, they stretch their crowns up to 40 m high into the sky, their trunks are up to 4.5 m thick. The Sierran redwood, a subfamily of the cypress plant family, is considered extremely resistant. The thick, fibrous bark protects it from forest fires, and it is also considered frost-tolerant. Its height can even reach twice as much as that of the redwoods of Fennhals.

The sequoia trees of Fennhals - "Mammutbäume" in German, "Sequoie giganti" in Italian - stand on limestone and seem to thrive well in the Mediterranean climate of the Wine Road. But the fact that they are here at all goes back to a historical event: They were planted in 1898 on the occasion of the 50th coronation anniversary of the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I. Mt. Favogna also has several other interesting places to offer: The "Teitsche Stoan", a striking rock spur on Mt. Giggerberg, Lake Favogna, a biotope, the highest Müller-Thurgau vineyard in all of Europe at 1,000 m a.s.l., a Bronze Age copper smelting site dating back to about 1500 B.C. near Fennhals, and the birthplace of Field Marshal Lieutenant Franz Phillipp Fenner von Fennberg are all well known.

And how to reach the trees? They are located about 300 m after the hamlet of Fennhals along the road, a hike from Favogna di Sopra also leads past the natural monument. A bus stop is located a few metres in front of it. At the Renaissance castle Ulmburg in Favogna di Sopra, it is said that some sequoia trees have been cultivated from the existing seeds.