Foiana Farm Life Museum

Not so long ago, technology offered mountain farmers far less support than it does today. Their lives were full of hardship and toil. The Foiana Farm Life Museum (Bauernmuseum Völlan) documents this era through numerous devices, tools, and objects from everyday rural life.

The museum was founded in the 1970s at the initiative of Munich resident Horst Giessner, local historian Karl Frei, and the Foiana parish priest, Father Rudolf Lantschner, who provided the premises. The museum opened in 1977 in an outbuilding of the rectory in Foiana. This building originally housed a baking oven, woodshed, laundry room, and pigsty.

Today, the Foiana Museum Association runs the museum, which focuses primarily on the 18th and 19th centuries. On the ground floor, you can see a farmhouse parlour with a Val di Non chest of drawers (1862), a room with tools and baskets, another with equipment such as flax combs, flax brakes, and sulphuring devices, and a mill room with a mill from Auna di Sopra on the Renon. The upper floor is dedicated to the techniques of spinning and weaving.

How to get there: The Foiana Farm Life Museum is located on the edge of Foiana, a small car park is available. You can reach the village from Lana by bus number 214 in 10 minutes. You can also combine your museum visit with a hike on the Foiana Chestnut Trail. The path begins and ends near the museum and takes about an hour and a half.