The museum

The Gherdeina Local Heritage Museum is situated right in the center of Ortisei and exhibits valuable collections related to the cultural and natural history of the Gardena Valley: precious sculptures and paintings of local artists of the last four centuries and a unique collection of ancient wooden toys of the area, spectacular minerals and fossils of plants and marine creatures testifying to the fascinating evolution and creation of the Dolomites as extensive coral reefs over 200 million years ago, as well as remarkable archaeological finds of the oldest human traces of the area.

Two very extraordinary exhibits are the richly pictured Lenten cloth of the Saint James¹ Church above Ortisei (1620) and the very impressive original cruzifix of Seurasas (1932).

The multimedial exhibition "Bierjun 1490. A Secret Passion" shows the tiny bedchamber room from the Bierjun farmhouse near Ortisei with very rare drawings from the Late Middle Ages. The delicate drawings on the wooden walls are shown through a "digital window".

The Museum Gherdëina also houses the Archive and permanent exhibition of Luis Trenker (1892-1990), actor and director of many mountains films.