Anyone walking through Castaneda today moves through a place whose history is far older than its houses. Archaeological excavations show that people were already living here some 2,500 years ago. What remains of them is a significant Iron Age burial ground with jewellery, weapons, pottery and precious vessels.
The people of that time belonged to the cultural sphere of Golasecca and are often associated with the Lepontii. Lying on the southern edge of the Alps, Castaneda was in contact with different worlds even then. Important routes between north and south ran through the Mesolcina valley, and along them goods, people and cultural influences found their way across the Alps. The region thus became a link between the Etruscan world to the south and the lands north of the Alps.
One of the most remarkable finds from Castaneda is a bronze beaked flagon from the late 5th or early 4th century BC. On its rim is a Lepontic inscription, regarded today as the oldest known written record from Grisons. Its exact meaning has still not been fully explained.
Whether our house really owes its name, Albergo Etrusco, to that ancient connection with the Etruscan world can no longer be said with certainty. The name was already there when we took the Albergo over.
And yet perhaps that is exactly why it suits this place so well: thousands of years ago Castaneda was already a place between north and south, shaped by encounter and exchange. Today we would like to carry that story on in our own way and once again bring together people from different places under one roof.
