This association was founded to relaunch the cultural and historic heritage of Dossena and of the entire Brembana Valley.
This association was founded to relaunch the cultural and historic heritage of Dossena and of the entire Brembana Valley.
We don’t know we want something until it is proposed to us
There are spectacles that anyone has the right to admire; natural theatres amid geological conformations and mining sites of historical and cultural importance expressed in a thousand years of settlement. This is what the Dossena Mines Association intends to enhance, in order to offer the public an unusual and exciting environment to visit, rich in subjects of profound interest that, in some way, have interacted in everyone’s history.
The restoration work
The restoration work on the Dossena mines in the Paglio locality began in September 2014, thanks to the work of 80 volunteers coordinated by the Dossena municipality. The cleaning of the old debris, the lighting and the activity of securing the pre-established tunnels made possible the inauguration on 6th December 2014, and the subsequent opening on 2nd May 2015, along a relatively short route through ancient mining excavations. The extension work is still in progress, in order to offer the public a longer and deeper journey into the depths of the mountain and to relive the stories of those who experienced them.
Cleaning and restoration procedures are in constant activity in order to prepare new routes that can be visited; but even more active are the search excursions among the endless mining tunnels, deeper and deeper, in the hope of finding forgotten artefacts of inestimable historical value
.
Mine access tunnel
The drawing shows the access tunnel, which was the main entrance used by the workers during the last century of activity, to supply air and water using compressors and pumps and to transport the extracted material outside. The main tunnel, about 300 metres long, leads into an artificial cavern where it divides into two tunnels. The galleria del vento (wind tunnel), which leads to an extensive mining site developed on several levels, through which it is possible to reach below the village of Dossena, or to reach the adjoining mining site at the well-known Lente Martelli artificial cavern. The galleria dei sospiri (tunnel of sighs) was one of the last sounding excavations from which no deposits were found.
