Cavaglia

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Hamlet in Graubünden, Switzerland

title: "Cavaglia" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["villages-in-poschiavo"] description: "Hamlet in Graubünden, Switzerland" topic_path: "general/villages-in-poschiavo" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavaglia" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Hamlet in Graubünden, Switzerland ::

::callout[type=note] the hamlet in Val Poschiavo ::

Cavaglia is a small hamlet on the western flank of Val Poschiavo in the canton of Graubünden, Switzerland. Perched at 1,703 m on the hanging Plan da l'Alp terrace, it lies roughly 4.7 km north-west of Poschiavo village but 700 m higher, making the road distance 11 km and the Bernina Line rail journey about 25 minutes. The locality is known for its UNESCO-listed railway station, the nearby Glacier Garden, and a cavern hydropower plant that forms part of the Val Poschiavo cascade.

Geography and climate

Cavaglia occupies a broad glacio-fluvial bench shaped by the retreating Palü Glacier. The cavity-filled Cavagliasch stream drains the shelf, dropping through a gorge before joining the Poschiavino at Puntalta. A MeteoSwiss station records a mean annual temperature of 2 °C and about 1,230 mm of precipitation, roughly half of which falls as snow between October and April.

Transport

Cavaglia railway station is a halt on the Bernina railway, part of the Rhaetian Railway in the Albula/Bernina Landscapes world-heritage corridor. To the south the line hugs the shore of Lago di Poschiavo; to the north it climbs street-running through Le Prese and Spinadascio before the gradient steepens toward Alp Grüm.

Glacier Garden

South-west of the hamlet, melt-water vortices from the last glaciation carved more than 30 "giant's kettles" up to 15 m deep in the greywacke bedrock. Protected since 1996 as the Giardino dei Ghiacciai di Cavaglia, the geosite features walkways and trilingual panels and draws about 35,000 visitors a year on tours coordinated with train schedules. A marked nature trail circles the hamlet and links the Glacier Garden to panoramic viewpoints over Val Poschiavo.

Hydropower

The 7 MW (1927) stands in a cavern beneath the terrace, reached by an 800 m pressurised tunnel and service funicular from at Palü Lake. Water leaves the plant via the Cavagliasch, then enters a pipeline to at San Carlo. A short surface spur once linked the cavern to Cavaglia station for heavy equipment deliveries; its trace is still visible in the Bernina-line heritage dossier.

References

References

  1. link. (7 July 2011 , RhB World Heritage Site. Retrieved 27 January 2009.)
  2. "Wasserkraftwerke". Repower.
  3. "Die Puschlaver Geisterbahn". Funimag.
  4. "Climate Normals 1991 – 2020, Station Cavaglia". MeteoSwiss.
  5. "The Cavaglia Glacier Garden". Associazione Giardino dei Ghiacciai di Cavaglia.
  6. "Maps of Switzerland". Swiss Confederation.
  7. (2007). "Nomination Dossier: Rhaetian Railway in the Albula/Bernina Cultural Landscape". Rhaetian Railway.

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villages-in-poschiavo