Foppolo is the highest municipality in the province of Bergamo, at the far end of the Val Brembana: beyond it no road goes on towards the Valtellina. The name comes from the dialect: a foppa is a small hollow, and the village does indeed sit in a hollow among the mountains. Until the nineteen thirties it could be reached only by narrow and dangerous mule tracks; the carriage road, carried up from Cambrembo and opened in 1934, took Foppolo out of its isolation and brought the ski lifts. Winter tourism came from that, and it is the reason why this village, unlike its neighbours, has not emptied out: it has very few permanent residents and a great many second homes.
The mountain, though, presents its bill. Today's parish church was rebuilt in 1735 because an avalanche had carried away the one before it. And on 12 January 1977 an avalanche broke away below the summit of Monte Arete, came down the Vallesino gully and fell on the lower part of the village, striking blocks of flats, houses and the church: eight people died, and Foppolo was cut off for a week. At the Passo Dordona, above the village, the trenches of the First World War are still there: they were not on the front, they were the second line, in case the Austrians broke through in the upper Valtellina.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Foppolo
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
