A fabulous painted ceiling and frescoes dating back a thousand years and more in lovely churches plus the beautiful traditional painted houses of Unterengadine mountain villages.
We stayed in the village of Santa Maria Val Mustair in 2018 for three nights. We'd been hoping to do the Stelvio Pass but it was still closed due to snow - really far too early, need to come back in summer.
The village has some lovely decorated houses, the nicest are off the main road down towards the river.
We did a good walk one morning starting from the village and walking south east up through the meadows then north east towards Mustair, though not going that far. We crossed the small Rom River and climbed up the opposing ridge to walk back towards Santa Maria.
We skirted the south west edge of Mustair where we came across a small whitewashed church with some fragments of frescoes including St. Christopher - very popular in this region - and a vivid St. Sebastian.
It is said that Charlemagne founded a monastery here towards the end of the eighth century. In the 12th century it became a convent. The convent church was originally Carolingian - a single space with three apses. It was converted to a Gothic hall church by the addition of two rows of columns to form a nave and two aisles.
What is still remarkable about the church is the series of Carolingian frescoes remaining on the walls, dating back to around 800 AD. Today they have lost much of their colour but are still a remarkable relic of 1200 years ago.
The apses were painted over in the Romanesque period. The central apse was being renovated in 2018 but we had been able to see it on a previous visit in 1991.
The road through Val Mustair rises in the west to the Fuorn (Ofen) Pass. On a bright sunny morning we drove up to the pass which lies at over 2,000m above sea level, on our way to explore some villages in the Engadin Valley to the north of Val Mustair.
The road from Val Mustair reaches the River En at Zernez, close to where the Upper Engadine becomes the Lower Engadine. Here we turned north.
The beautiful village of Guarda stands high on a mountain terrace 1653m above sea level, facing a string of high peaks. There is a car park just outside the village and a short uphill walk brings you to the cobbled streets and traditional painted houses.
The views of the mountains are beautiful and a track connects villages along the mountainside - it would make a fine hike.
Eastwards to Scuol, another very attractive village. We were well out of season and barely saw another soul as we wandered the streets of these villages, but in summer they are very popular.