If you are in Mezzocorona, looking up at the west wall of the mountain you can see the ruins of Castel San Gottardo.
Initially called "Corona di Mezo", this medieval manor dates back to 1181. You can still see the remains of the city walls, the small palace of the Firmian counts and a church dedicated to St. Gotthard. In the Renaissance the fortress was abandoned and the counts moved to a stately home just below, Castel Firmian.
In the castle cave our ancestors found dinosaur footprints and a coat of arms depicting a dragon: hence the famous Legend of the Basilisk. It is said that a fearsome dragon terrorized the villagers for years and was then killed by Count Firmian: the drops of his blood fell downstream and caused a new vine plant, the Teroldego Rotaliano, to sprout from the ground.
Today Castel San Gottardo cannot be visited safely due to small but continuous landslides.
