A trip to the old water-powered smelter
The municipality of Dobbiaco is rich in water not only because of the beautiful Dobbiaco Lake and the Dürer Lake. At the Dobbiaco Drava spring, for example, one of the longest rivers in Europe rises. And Dobbiaco forms the watershed between the Danube and the Adige.
Dobbiaco draws its drinking water from two sources: Firstly from the limestone of the Dolomites and secondly from the iron-rich primary rock of the Central Alps. The water is also used as an energy source. The people of Dobbiaco get their electricity from a hydroelectric power station.
The abundance of water in Dobbiaco was also used in early years for crafts and mills. For example, also for the water-powered smelting works on the Klauskofel in the Höhlenstein Valley. Here water and fire entered into a very special symbiosis: Water-powered bellows ensured that the fire reached particularly high temperatures and that lead ores and zinc ores could be smelted.
I have brought you a few pictures of this impressive place.
Kind regards
