Lake Carezza (Karersee)

Interesting facts

The Grand Hotel Carezza above the lake opened on 5 July 1896, built by the South Tyrolean tourism pioneer Theodor Christomannos.

Empress Elisabeth of Austria, known as Sisi, spent a rest cure at the Grand Hotel Carezza in August 1897.

Agatha Christie, the Winnetou author Karl May and the Viennese writer Arthur Schnitzler were among the hotel's famous guests.

The Grand Hotel burned down on the night of 15 August 1910 and was rebuilt within two years with 350 rooms.

John Singer Sargent painted the lake in 1914 in a watercolour titled Karer See.

The name derives from Char, recorded around 1300 as the name of a high alpine basin used as pasture.

The lake covers only about 3.5 hectares, yet it drains a catchment of some 5.8 square kilometres on the slopes of the Latemar.

In winter divers descend beneath the ice, and their dives have been filmed for documentaries.

The storm Vaia of October 2018, also known as Adrian, left visible damage in the forest around the lake.

Why it is worth it

The Karersee — Lago di Carezza in Italian, Lec de Ergobando in Ladin — is a small lake, only about 300 metres long and 140 wide, but it sits in one of the most theatrical settings of the Dolomites. Dark spruce forest closes in around the shore, and above the trees rise the pale, splintered towers of the Latemar, doubled in the still water on a calm morning. Nearby stands the Rosengarten (Catinaccio) massif, the other great wall of this corner of the range. Few lakes in the Alps offer so much mountain for so little water.

Its colours are the reason for its Ladin name, "rainbow lake". Depending on the light, the depth and the season, the water moves through bottle-green, emerald, turquoise and deep blue, often several at once from the shallows to the middle. The lake has no visible inflow: it is fed by underground springs from the Latemar, so its level and size change noticeably with the seasons. It reaches a little over 20 metres at its deepest.

Local legend explains the colours with a story of loss. A water nymph, Ondina, lived in the lake and sang so beautifully that a sorcerer from the Latemar fell in love with her. On the advice of a witch he spread a rainbow from the Rosengarten to the lake to lure her out, but in his haste forgot his disguise; the nymph saw him and vanished beneath the surface for good, and in his rage he smashed the rainbow and hurled the pieces into the water. A small bronze figure of Ondina, set on a submerged rock in 2005, appears only when the water is low.

The lake lies at about 1,520 metres in the municipality of Welschnofen (Nova Levante), in the Eggental valley. It is a protected alpine lake: swimming is not allowed, and the shore is best seen from the paths that circle it through the woods, the longer loops crossing a small suspension bridge and offering views back over the water to the Latemar.

Getting there

The lake is about 20 km southeast of Bolzano, whose small airport (BZO) lies about 20 km away; larger international airports serve the region from further afield. From Bolzano, bus route 180 runs up the Eggental to the lake in about 45 minutes. Walking circuits around the shore take from 20 minutes to an hour and a half.

Lake Carezza (Karersee)

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

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