This website results from some ideas that came to my mind while gathering the period post cards that tell us the history of my village, San Martino di Castrozza, and while making some presentations to show them to people and friends.

My first wish is to share a collection born by accident and grown in the course of time, because I think it is useless, short-sighted and a little madcap to shut away in a drawer such significant documents, contemplating them alone inside a room, although many collectors, not just post cards collectors, do think that way.

Then I would like to make everyone that knows San Martino understand not just its history, but also the reasons of its development and its changes.

My third wish is to pay a tribute to the Toffol family, to my ancestors, who first believed this wonderful place had such a great touristic potential and who first settled here, making its international reputation with their work and their sacrifice, before many others in the following years. This web site is, for this reason, a way to remind, above all, my great-grandfather, Vittore, without whom we now would not be here and to whom, afterwards, no one named a square, a street or not even a single stone in the village he first contributed to set up.

At the end the most important wish writing these pages, is to honour just “it”, my village, San Martino di Castrozza, without doubt one of the most wonderful resorts in all Dolomites. Words can hardly describe the emotion before a sunset on the Pale di San Martino; few sights can give a feeling of peace and well-being as that of Sass Maor and Madonna sunlit, in the evening, before the sun gets down behind the slopes of Tognola. Few moments can be as breathtaking as the view of Cimone della Pala from Passo Rolle. Watching the village from above, possibly climbing to the Piani della Cavalazza and admiring the marvellous surroundings and the mountain range which crowns it, you can only approve the famous Gunther Langes’ sentence in the 30s:

“Who doesn’t know San Martino, doesn’t know the Dolomites!”

I inserted in this website pages all my postcards and I plan to insert more in the future.

I divided the collection into various subjects that can help making the visit easier to follow. Some post cards seem equal but, if you observe them carefully, you will find the differences: a detail or a smallest particular helps to date a building, a street, a route. I don’t pretend to be impartial in my opinions about San Martino and I beg your understanding. I am fully available for any observation, comment or remark: if you want, you can send a message to the link at the bottom of the page.

A courtesy I will ask: my post cards are open and everyone can download them and use them. I just ask the kindness to mention this web site in case of downloads.

I want to thank so much my friend Paola Simoni, who helped me dating some of the buildings and my dear old friend “Count Eszterhazy” who first linked me on his web site.

A source very precious was the publication “Ci scrivono da Primiero… (They write to us from Primiero…) printed by my friend Erwin Filippi Gilli, a book which collects all reports about Primiero in the local press from the first years of 19th century until 1918. I suggest reading it.

Thank you very much.                                                 

                                                               Marco Toffol

To visit this website I advise you not to use Microsoft Explorer. Mozilla Firefox or Apple Safari will work best. If you want to improve, pass to Macintosh: you won’t regret it!

English translation: Patrizia Toffol

Supervision: Giorgio Buttelli Toffol