San Pancrazio

San Pancrazio (St. Pankraz in German) sits at 736 metres at the mouth of the Ultental — Val d'Ultimo in Italian — one of the most isolated alpine side-valleys of the Adige basin in South Tyrol. The village is the largest of four comuni in the valley (San Pancrazio, San Walburga, Santa Gertrude, and the upper village around Pracupola), 92% of residents speak German as their first language, and the local economy is still organised around alpine pasturing on the south-facing slopes of the Maddalena group and the Ortles range to the south-west.

The parish church of San Pancrazio Martire was rebuilt in 1796 in late-Baroque style after fire, with the tall narrow Tyrolean bell tower visible from the valley road. The real draw is the Ultental itself: the protected Larici Millenari (Lahnerlärchen) above San Pancrazio include several larches over 800 years old, some of the oldest documented in Europe, and the Lahner Säge open-air sawmill museum a few kilometres up the valley preserves the 17th-century water-powered timber processing that built the Tyrolean church roofs. The Stelvio National Park boundary passes just south of the village.