A trip to Rupe Magna

Rupe Magna is the Italian name for a rock art panel near the Castello Visconti Venosta, a 14th century castle in Grosio. To pep up our holidays we decided to throw in some archaeology and went to see Rupe Magna which was a mere 2 hours drive away from Varenna. Unfortunately it was a cloudy day and it also drizzled a bit, which is really really bad for rock art which is best seen with a morning or evening sun when the sun rays fall upon it in an oblique angle and carve deep shadows. Since the weather didn't seem to change for the better we went there anyway. The site was beautiful with the huge rock panel stretching outside of the castle walls.

This is the castle or what is left of it:

In proper weather you can see that the rock panel is engraved over and over with cupules and figures:

http://www.rupestre.net/tracce/digital.html (fig. 7)

Here is a motif with arcs, maybe a tent or hut, or something completely different :)
What you can see on a rainy day is this:

Maybe you can see the figures better with some digital help:

If you want to know more about Rupe Magna have a look here.

If you want to see one more photo of how beautiful the area was, you can watch it here:

When we came back home, bags full of wine, Valtellina's very own polenta (with buckwheat), carrot jam, and of course crostate (jam filled cakes) we had a fantastic pizza in Varenna just besides the lake. While having a vegan pizza with radicchio paste as base instead of a tomato base and green asparagus. Lovely! And on top we could watch the monster of Lake Como (or rather C because he made the photo while the rest of us fed upon tiramisù and crostata. See the monster between the boats?