Ristorante Motrice (Station 9 Rundgang Hildesheimer)

"Dietmar Polaczek con Mimma, Padre Camillo, Valerio Righini, Marilena Garavatti a cena da Isepponi. Bella serata." (1)

Our walk ends at the Ristorante Motrice. Wolfgang Hildesheimer liked to be a guest here and it was here that he also brought many of his visitors - publishers, artists, students from all over the world - who travelled to Poschiavo especially to meet Hildesheimer.

In the back dining room of the restaurant there are numerous pictures, some of which are by artists from Hildesheimer's circle of friends. Also on display are the reproductions of a collage by Hildesheimer and a painting by his wife Silvia.

Settle down, rest and leaf through the books by Wolfgang Hildesheimer, which are available in the back of the restaurant.

Finally, we quote the final paragraph from Wolfgang Hildesheimer's text "The Experience of the Unexpected":

"Poschiavo is the adopted home of the author of these lines One may never face the adopted home completely objectively, otherwise one would not have voted for it. ... Nevertheless, this is a report and not the song of a rhapsode. The author has often had the opportunity to seek the judgment of critical guests, more active natures than himself, to whom any inclination towards microcosmic well-being is alien.

They confirmed the uniqueness, and not just the visual and atmospheric uniqueness. They confirm that the children are more beautiful here than elsewhere, the adults more open-minded and articulate than in other mountain valleys. That the small-minded, philistine, narrow-minded, the suspended, shirt-sleeved is missing here. The Poschiavo lives in serenity and restraint, is noble down to the simplest man, it does not serve and does not sweat. Even the notorious drinkers of the valley - and thank God there are those! - are not aggressive, but melancholic, and when you see ladies with ugly hats walking across the piazza, you can be sure that they come from the north, hats and ladies.

Here, where there is only a single, almost invisible policeman, where social differences are ignored to the best of their knowledge, where a birth becomes an event and a death a welcome opportunity for general sympathy, where no sensible person has so much to do that he would not be willing to spend half an hour at any time of the day with a glass of wine and a chat - the word is "badòz", the newcomer is seized by the feeling of living in an intact world, and who doesn't like to indulge in this feeling."

Sources
(1) Shelfmark II - Wolfgang Hildesheimer, ed. H. T. Rommerskirchen, 1989, unpag.
(2) The Experience of the Unexpected, in Merian 14/8, 1961.