Cavaglia is a small

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...

on the western flank of

Val Poschiavo Val Poschiavo (, , ) is a valley in the southern, Italian-speaking part of the Swiss canton of the Grisons. The main town is Poschiavo. The valley is known for its distinctive microclimate that supports a diverse agricultural landscape, ranging ...

in the

canton of Graubünden The Grisons (; ) or Graubünden (),Names include: * ; * Romansh: ** ** ** ** ** **; * ; * ; * . See also other names. more formally the Canton of the Grisons or the Canton of Graubünden, is one of the twenty-six cantons of Switzerland. I ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

. Perched at on the hanging Plan da l'Alp terrace, it lies roughly north-west of Poschiavo village but higher, making the road distance and the

Bernina Line The Bernina railway line (; ; ) is a single-track railway line forming part of the Rhaetian Railway (RhB). It links the spa resort of St. Moritz, in the canton of Graubünden, Switzerland, with the town of Tirano, in the Province of Sondrio, I ...

rail journey about 25 minutes. The locality is known for its

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

-listed railway station, the nearby Glacier Garden, and a cavern

hydropower plant Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies 15% of the world's electricity, almost 4,210 TWh in 2023, which is more than all other renewable sources combined and also mo ...

that forms part of the Val Poschiavo cascade.

Geography and climate

Cavaglia occupies a broad

glacio-fluvial In geography and geology, fluvial sediment processes or fluvial sediment transport are associated with rivers and streams and the deposits and landforms created by sediments. It can result in the formation of ripples and dunes, in fractal-shaped ...

bench shaped by the retreating

Palü Glacier The Palü Glacier ( Romansh: ''Vadret da Palü'') is a 3.5 km long glacier (2005) on the southeastern flank of Piz Palü in the Bernina Range. It belongs to the valley of Poschiavo in the canton of Graubünden. In 1973 it had an area of 6.4 ...

. The cavity-filled Cavagliasch stream drains the shelf, dropping through a

gorge A canyon (; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), gorge or chasm, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosion, erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tend ...

before joining the

Poschiavino Poschiavino is an long river that rises in the Swiss canton of Graubünden and flows into the Italian province of Sondrio. The majority of the river is in Switzerland, with just in Italy. The source of the river lies at above sea level in ...

at Puntalta. A

MeteoSwiss MeteoSwiss, officially the Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology, is an office of the federal administration of Switzerland. It employs 290 people at locations in Zurich, Zurich Airport, Geneva, Locarno and Payerne. History Originally ...

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 The Bernina railway line (; ; ) is a Single track (rail), single-track railway line forming part of the Rhaetian Railway (RhB). It links the spa resort of St. Moritz, in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Graubünden, Switzerland, with the tow ...

, 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 Lago di Poschiavo is a natural lake in the Val di Poschiavo in the Swiss Cantons of Switzerland, canton of the Grisons. Geography It lies at an elevation of , a length of , a surface area of and a maximum depth of . The lake is both fed and dr ...

; to the north it climbs

street-running A street running train is a train which runs on a Railway track, track built on public streets. The rails are embedded in the roadway, and the train shares the street with other users, such as pedestrians, cars and cyclists, thus often being ref ...

through Le Prese and Spinadascio before the

gradient In vector calculus, the gradient of a scalar-valued differentiable function f of several variables is the vector field (or vector-valued function) \nabla f whose value at a point p gives the direction and the rate of fastest increase. The g ...

steepens toward Alp Grüm.

Glacier Garden

South-west of the hamlet, melt-water vortices from the last

glaciation A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate be ...

carved more than 30 "giant's kettles" up to 15 m deep in the

greywacke Greywacke or graywacke ( ) is a variety of sandstone generally characterized by its hardness (6–7 on Mohs scale), dark color, and Sorting (sediment), poorly sorted angular grains of quartz, feldspar, and small rock fragments or sand-size Lith ...

bedrock. Protected since 1996 as the Giardino dei Ghiacciai di Cavaglia, the

geosite Geoheritage (a blend of ''geological'' and ''heritage'') is the geological aspect of natural and cultural heritage. A geosite is a particular geological heritage asset. It is a heritage category comparable to other forms of natural heritage, such ...

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 A spur is a metal tool designed to be worn in pairs on the heels of riding boots for the purpose of directing a horse or other animal to move forward or laterally while riding. It is usually used to refine the riding aids (commands) and to ba ...

once linked the cavern to Cavaglia station for

heavy equipment Heavy equipment, heavy machinery, earthmovers, construction vehicles, or construction equipment, refers to heavy-duty vehicles specially designed to execute construction tasks, most frequently involving earthwork operations or other large con ...

deliveries; its trace is still visible in the Bernina-line heritage dossier.

References

{{Reflist, 30em, refs= {{cite web , title=Climate Normals 1991 – 2020, Station Cavaglia , url=https://www.meteoswiss.admin.ch/climate-normals/cavaglia , publisher=MeteoSwiss , access-date=29 April 2025 {{cite web , title=The Cavaglia Glacier Garden , url=https://ggc.swiss/en/info/the-association , publisher=Associazione Giardino dei Ghiacciai di Cavaglia , access-date=29 April 2025 {{cite map , url=https://s.geo.admin.ch/8c7c321f6f , title=Maps of Switzerland , publisher=Swiss Confederation , work=map.geo.admin.ch , accessdate=22 October 2020 {{cite report , title=Nomination Dossier: Rhaetian Railway in the Albula/Bernina Cultural Landscape , url=https://whc.unesco.org/uploads/nominations/1276rev.pdf , publisher=Rhaetian Railway , year=2007 , page=172 , access-date=29 April 2025 Villages in Poschiavo