How to choose the hamlet and the house

The Sappada valley runs from west to east. The north side faces the sun and is called the solatìo; the south side faces the ski runs and stays in shade in winter. Fourteen hamlets out of fifteen are on the solatìo: the real choice is not between the two slopes, but between positions along the first.

The reason stands opposite. South of the village rise, steeply, Monte Siera and the Clap group. Around the winter solstice the midday sun is low, and from many hamlets it passes behind that profile: it does not clear it, it goes round it. This is why two houses with the same aspect, a kilometre apart, have different days in December.

For each hamlet we calculated the full-circle horizon and, for the 21st of each month, when the sun arrives, when it leaves and how many hours it stays. Below is 21 December, the worst day, alongside 21 March and 21 June.¹³

Three things can be read. First: in December the sun arrives early in the west, between Pill and Bach, and later and later towards Soravia. Second: Ecche, Puiche and Cretta see it in the morning, lose it at midday behind the Siera and sometimes find it again; Cima Sappada has only the morning. Third: by March the differences have almost gone.

If the house is for Christmas and New Year, the weeks of shade are exactly yours: look at the December column and, on the spot, go and see at midday. If it is for February, March and summer, the difference between hamlets almost disappears, and the east of the valley offers a more open horizon.

The order changes with the month too: the hamlets at the top in December are not the same as in January or February. Anyone who writes “the sunniest hamlet” without saying in which month is being imprecise. Over the whole year, under an always clear sky, the hamlets are almost equal.

Altitude changes little between hamlets: from 1,214 m in Palù to 1,297 m in Cima Sappada. The shape of the basin matters more. Cold air pools on the valley floor, and Sappada is colder than its altitude would suggest.

The village weather station, in Borgata Ecche, records a mean temperature of -3.8 °C in January and on average 152 frost days a year; in July the mean maximum is 21.4 °C. Summer is genuinely cool, and winter is long: in every hamlet the insulation of the house matters more than a few metres of altitude.⁴

• The main façade to the south, the roof ridge running north to south. That is how the old houses are built, and it is what the land-use plan requires of new ones in the infill zones. Be wary of a living room that looks at the slope.²
• Balconies where your sun arrives. In the west, between Pill and Mühlbach, south and south-east pay off; between Hoffe and Soravia south-west, where the sun arrives late and stays until sunset; in Cima, south-east.
• Look at what stands to the south, close by. With the low December sun a two-storey building casts a long shadow: a ground floor with a house in front may see no sun even in the best-placed hamlet. Upper floors suffer less.
• Ask what may be built in front. If below there is a meadow that the plan classes as not buildable, the view is protected by the rules; if there is a building plot, it is not. You need the planning certificate for the neighbouring land, not only for your own.²

On the regional road you have shops, buses and access that is always cleared; on the old road, quiet and character, with one more climb. In houses on the regional road, check which side the bedrooms are on.

In winter the problem is the car, not the house. In the historic hamlets no above-ground garages or carports can be built: a covered parking space is scarce, and must be written into the deed. Check the gradient of the access and who clears the snow on the private stretch.²

They are two different purchases, and neither is the better version of the other.

For an old house the first thing to ask the municipality is the plan zone and the building's protection grade: it decides what you can do with it more than any viewing. For a new build what counts is the specification, the delivery date and the statutory protections.

On this site the relief model of the basin can be moved: choose the day and the hour, and watch the shadow shift across the hamlets. In the listings of the homes we handle we state hamlet, floor and aspect; when we accompany a viewing we suggest the hour at which the house gets the sun, and the hour at which it loses it.