Marmolada and Costabella range

Marmolada with its glacier and Costabella range seen from Sella Pass. * * * The Marmolada Glacier is the only real glacier of the whole Dolomitic range... An ancient legend tells that once upon a time, where today there’s only ice and snow, there were fertile meadows, where the people of the town of Canazei gathered the hay. Every 5th of august (the Day of Madonna of Snow) all the people of Canazei stopped the gathering of the hay to go in pilgrimage in Gries, a near town. But a woman, to avoid that rain could delay his work, didn’t go in pilgrimage preferring to end the gathering, sayng: “Madona de la Neìf in via, Madona de la Neìf in ca, bon che mi fen l’è en te tobià” (“Madonna of Snow in the street, Madonna of the Snow at home, is good that my hay is in the barn”). At that moment it started to snow: and it snowed so much that the eager woman and the Marmolada’s green meadows were covered forever: and so was born the Marmolada Glacier.