Ledro

Ledro is a comune that has become one again. In November 2008 the voters of Pieve di Ledro, Bezzecca, Concei, Molina di Ledro, Tiarno di Sopra and Tiarno di Sotto voted for the merger, and since 1 January 2010 the valley has been a single comune, with its seat at Pieve and a municipio in each of the six former villages. The coat of arms is not new: it takes up the old oval seal of the Magnifica Comunità di Ledro, a beech tree with the words COMUNITAS LEUDRI. At Molina, on the shore of the lake, are the prehistoric pile dwellings that entered the World Heritage list in 2011.

The name Italians know, though, is Bezzecca. On 21 July 1866 the Austrians under general Kuhn came down the Val Concei to outflank Garibaldi's volunteers: they took Lenzumo, then Locca, where colonel Giovanni Chiassi was mortally wounded defending the village church, and finally drove the volunteers out of Bezzecca, taking a thousand or so prisoners. It was the volunteers' counter-attack that turned the day, and the victory opened the road to Trento. In August, however, the order came to stop: Garibaldi answered Obbedisco, I obey, and evacuated the Trentino he had taken. At Bezzecca there is a military shrine to the dead. Out of the lake runs the Ponale, which ends in Lake Garda in a waterfall.