The smallest, the most isolated
Puiche
Puicha in the Sappada dialectHamlet of Sappada
Puiche, Puicha in Plodarisch, is the smallest hamlet in Sappada: a handful of houses around a small chapel, at 1,270 m, at the end of the old road and further from the regional road than any other historic cluster. It has no shops or services. It is the place for those who put quiet before everything else and accept the distances; but the houses are so few that finding one for sale is rare, and the sources say little about Puiche.
The sun here
Where the sun reaches Puiche from, and when
The ridge line you see is the real one, calculated from the centre of the hamlet. Above it are the sun's paths on the days that matter: where the line is solid the sun is in view, where it is dashed the sun has risen but is still behind the mountain.
On 21 December the sun reaches Puiche at about 10:25 and leaves at about 15:20: about 3 h of direct sun, under a clear sky.
Move your mouse or finger over the panorama, or use the slider beside it: you can read the direction, the height of the ridge, the peak, and the time the sun passes that way.
In words: from Puiche the highest stretch of ridge lies to the north, 27° above the horizon; the lowest to the east, 3.1°. To the south the ridge stands at 24.6°, and at midday on 21 December the sun climbs to 20°. At midday on that day the sun stays behind the ridge. On 21 December it arrives at about 10:25 and leaves at about 15:20; on 21 June it stays in view from roughly 6:30 to 19:25.
Hours of direct sun, month by month
On the 21st of each month, under a clear sky, at the centre of the hamlet. The pale band is the day as it would be without mountains: the difference is what the ridge takes away.
- direct sun in Puiche
- the day without mountains
- average of the hamlets
The same figures as a table
| Day | Direct sun | First light | Last light | Without mountains | Average of the hamlets |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 January | 6 h 25 min | 9:05 | 16:05 | 9 h 08 min | 5 h 15 min |
| 21 February | 8 h 30 min | 8:40 | 17:10 | 10 h 36 min | 8 h 05 min |
| 21 March | 10 h 30 min | 7:05 | 17:35 | 12 h 08 min | 10 h 25 min |
| 21 April | 12 h 25 min | 6:50 | 19:10 | 13 h 49 min | 12 h 25 min |
| 21 May | 12 h 35 min | 6:35 | 19:15 | 15 h 10 min | 13 h 10 min |
| 21 June | 12 h 55 min | 6:30 | 19:25 | 15 h 46 min | 13 h 35 min |
| 21 July | 12 h 40 min | 6:45 | 19:25 | 15 h 13 min | 13 h 15 min |
| 21 August | 12 h 25 min | 6:50 | 19:15 | 13 h 52 min | 12 h 25 min |
| 21 September | 10 h 35 min | 7:45 | 18:20 | 12 h 12 min | 10 h 30 min |
| 21 October | 8 h 30 min | 9:10 | 17:40 | 10 h 35 min | 8 h |
| 21 November | 6 h 25 min | 8:40 | 15:40 | 9 h 08 min | 5 h 15 min |
| 21 December | 3 h | 10:25 | 15:20 | 8 h 30 min | 3 h 45 min |
21 December, the shortest day
- First light
- 10:25at about
- Last light
- 15:20at about
- Direct sun
- 3 habout
- Without mountains the day would last 8 h 30 min: the ridge takes away 5 h 30 min.
- The day is broken up: the sun appears in spells (10:25–11:05, 13:00–15:20).
- Across the 28 mapped buildings of the hamlet, direct sun ranges from 2 h 25 min to 4 h 20 min; the mid-point is 3 h 20 min. Here the figure changes a great deal from one house to the next: the range is what counts, not the single point.
- At midday the sun stays behind the ridge from 17 November to 25 January: 70 days a year.
- What hides it longest is the ridge to the south, where Monte Siera stands: about 1 h 25 min.
The peaks in view from Puiche
According to the calculation: at least twenty metres of summit above the terrain in between. A wood or a nearby house can still hide them.
The list of peaks in view
| Peak | Direction | Distance | Altitude |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monte Tuglia | E · 98° | 4.4 km | 1,945 m |
| Monte Cimon | SE · 119° | 4.7 km | 2,415 m |
| Monte Creta Forata | SE · 148° | 3.8 km | 2,462 m |
| Monte Siera | S · 178° | 2.5 km | 2,443 m |
| Creton di Clap Grande | SW · 212° | 5.6 km | 2,487 m |
| Terza Piccola | W · 259° | 6.7 km | 2,336 m |
| Monte del Ferro | W · 292° | 3.4 km | 2,347 m |
Names and altitudes are those of OpenStreetMap. Peaks beyond the basin are left out: they are long lines of sight that need checking on the spot before we state them.
MethodA calculation, not a measurement: terrain model at 10 m, clear sky, the centre of the hamlet with the eye 6 m above the ground. Trees and buildings are not counted; times are rounded to five minutes and, where the sun skims a ridge, they can shift by ten to twenty.
Sources and details of the calculation
Times are Italian local time (summer time from late March to late October), calculated for the year 2027; the sun counts as present when the centre of its disc is above the ridge. On 21 September the sun's path is almost the same as on 21 March, an hour later by the clock. Calculated on 7 October 2026.
- Tarquini S., I. Isola, M. Favalli, A. Battistini, G. Dotta (2023). TINITALY, a digital elevation model of Italy with a 10 meters cell size (Version 1.1). Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV). doi.org/10.13127/tinitaly/1.1
- produced using Copernicus WorldDEM-30 © DLR e.V. 2010-2014 and © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH 2014-2018 provided under COPERNICUS by the European Union and ESA; all rights reserved
- Borgate e cime: © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL 1.0 — www.openstreetmap.org/copyright
- Posizione del sole: NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory, Solar Calculator (gml.noaa.gov/grad/solcalc/), da J. Meeus, «Astronomical Algorithms»
What Puiche is like
What kind of place it is
Puicha is the beech. The hamlet is the last on the old road towards the east, after Ecche: a few houses around the small chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary, from 1901, which stands on the edge of the scarp with a fountain beside it. The regional road passes a good way below and does not bear its name.
It is the smallest and most isolated of the fifteen. The only population figure by hamlet that we found concerns Puiche itself: sixteen inhabitants in 2000. It is a number more than twenty years old and from a single source; we report it to give the scale, not as a figure for today. The municipal statute writes it “Puicher”.
The sun: what the calculation says
From Puiche, Monte Siera stands opposite, to the south, and in December the sun passes behind it in the middle hours. On 21 December, according to our calculation, the hamlet's map point receives about 3 h of direct sun in two windows: one in mid-morning, from about 10:25, and one in the afternoon, until 15:20. Midday stays covered, again according to the calculation, from mid-November to the end of January.
But as soon as the sun rises above the ridge, the open horizon to the east works in its favour: on 21 January Puiche is, according to the same calculation, the hamlet with the most hours of sun in the village. On 21 March the figure is about 10 h 30 min, on 21 June about 12 h 55 min.
It is a calculation on the terrain model, under a clear sky, without trees or buildings, and here it is more uncertain than elsewhere: the sun skims the mountain, and moving the point by a hundred metres or so changes the December result a great deal. It can only be checked on site.
The houses, and what comes up for sale
A few dwellings, some of considerable interest according to the published descriptions. Beyond that we do not know: we found no listings in Puiche, nor a portal value for the hamlet. Anyone who wants it should expect to wait, or to look in the neighbouring hamlets.
The rules of the old hamlets apply: protection grade of the buildings, no additional volume, no garage above ground on the open spaces. For the Italian Revenue Agency Puiche is in the “peripheral” zone: standard homes between €1,900/m2 and €2,700/m2 (OMI, normal condition, gross floor area). With so few houses, a zone range says even less than usual.
On foot from here
You walk, and not a little. The Sappada 2000 and Pian dei Nidi chairlifts and the Monte Siera chairlift, in Cima, can all be reached on foot but none is close. The food shops are in Cima Sappada or Fontana; the town hall, post office and pharmacy are in Bach, and on foot they are very far. The cross-country trail passes along the valley floor, below the hamlet. We found no public information on snow clearance and winter parking on this stretch of the old road: ask before buying.
1,270 mSource 3OpenStreetMap, the hamlet's node, with the altitude from the EU-DEM 25 m model (OpenTopoData); data © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL · 6 October 2026
Altitude of the hamlet
The hamlet's point on OpenStreetMap; the houses stand between 1,256 m and 1,297 m.
Direct sun on 21 December
In two windows, with midday in shade. Calculated on the terrain model, under a clear sky, for the hamlet's map point: here it varies a great deal from one spot to another.
On foot from here
- the old road towards Ecche and Soravia
- the cross-country trail, on the valley floor
- the chairlifts, with a walk
- Cima Sappada, for food shopping
The drawback
No services, the centre far away, almost nothing for sale. And we know little about Puiche: what is missing here is missing in the sources.
Who it suits
Who Puiche suits, and who it does not
It suits you if
- Anyone who wants quiet before everything else.
- Anyone who uses the car for everything and does not see that as a flaw.
- Anyone who can wait for a house to come on to the market.
Look elsewhere if
- Anyone who wants shops, a pharmacy or lifts close by.
- Anyone buying for the Christmas sun.
- Anyone who does not want to think about winter access.
The drawbacks, stated
- It is the historic hamlet furthest from services: no shop, town hall and pharmacy in Bach.
- Very few houses: finding one for sale is rare.
- Between mid-November and the end of January midday is in shade, according to the calculation.
- Winter access and parking are not documented: they have to be checked on site.
Prices
How the Italian Revenue Agency values this area
Puiche falls within the zone that the property market observatory (OMI) calls “peripheral”. For homes in the “abitazioni civili” category, in normal condition, the official value (second half of 2025) runs from €1,900/m2Source 1Agenzia delle Entrate – OMI, database of official property values: standard homes, normal state of repair, euros per square metre of gross floor area. A broad range: it does not replace the valuation of an individual property · 6 October 2026 to €2,700/m2Source 2Agenzia delle Entrate – OMI, database of official property values: standard homes, normal state of repair, euros per square metre of gross floor area. A broad range: it does not replace the valuation of an individual property · 6 October 2026 of gross floor area. It is a range that applies to the whole zone: it is not the price of a house, and it is not an asking price from the listings.
Questions about Puiche
How many people live in Puiche?
There is no up-to-date figure. The only published number is sixteen inhabitants in 2000. Population data by hamlet are not released: they would have to be requested from the municipal registry office.
Can you find a house for sale in Puiche?
Rarely. There are a few dozen buildings in all, and in October 2026 we read no listings. If you are looking for this kind of place, look at Ecche and Cottern too, which are small and off the regional road.
Is it true that in January Puiche has more sun than anywhere else?
On 21 January, yes, according to our calculation on the terrain model. On 21 December, however, it is among those that receive least, with midday in shade. The difference between the two dates lies in a few degrees of the sun's height above the ridge of Monte Siera: that is why the result should be checked on site.
Sources
Facts checked against the sources on 6 October 2026.
- I Borghi più belli d'Italia in Friuli Venezia Giulia, “Le Borgate di Sappada” (entry for Puiche)
- Comune di Sappada – Plodn, “Alla scoperta delle borgate di Sappada / Plodn”
- Agenzia delle Entrate – OMI, property values database
- OpenStreetMap, nodes for hamlets, roads, lifts and services (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL)
- OpenStreetMap, the hamlet's node, with the altitude from the EU-DEM 25 m model (OpenTopoData); data © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL · 6 October 2026
- Our calculation, not a measurement, on the 10-metre terrain model (TINITALY, INGV) in the basin and the 30-metre model (Copernicus) beyond, under a clear sky, trees and buildings not considered; times and durations rounded to five minutes · 7 October 2026
- Agenzia delle Entrate – OMI, database of official property values: standard homes, normal state of repair, euros per square metre of gross floor area. A broad range: it does not replace the valuation of an individual property · 6 October 2026
- Our calculation: altitude of the hamlet's OpenStreetMap buildings on the EU-DEM 25 m model (median, 10th and 90th percentile) · 6 October 2026