Ristorante Motrice (Station 9 Rundgang Hildesheimer)

"Dietmar Polaczek with Mimma, Father Camillo, Valerio Righini, Marilena Garavatti at dinner at Isepponi. Nice evening." (1)

Our walk ends at the Motrice restaurant. Here Wolfgang Hildesheimer was often and willingly a guest of the Isepponi family and also brought several of his guests – publishers, artists, students from all over the world – who came to Poschiavo specifically to meet Hildesheimer.

In the dining room at the back of the restaurant you can admire several paintings that are partly the works of artists who were part of Hildesheimer's circle of friends, including reproductions of a collage by Wolfgang Hildesheimer and a painting by his wife Silvia.

Take a seat, rest and browse through the books of Wolfgang Hildesheimer available in the restaurant.
 

To conclude, we quote again the last paragraph of Wolfgang Hildesheimer's text on Valposchiavo published in Merian 14/8, 1961:

"Poschiavo is the elective homeland of the author of these lines. Perhaps it is not possible to be objective towards one's elective homeland, otherwise one would not have chosen it. Furthermore, I am of the opinion that objectivity is still a fiction. Despite this, this is an account and not the song of a rhapsode. The author has had several opportunities to collect the opinions of guests with a critical attitude, more active natures than myself, extraneous to any inclination to the sense of microcosmic well-being.

They confirmed its uniqueness, and not only its visual and atmospheric uniqueness. They confirmed that children here are more beautiful than elsewhere, adults more open and more articulate than in other mountain valleys. That here the narrow-minded, the petty bourgeois, the ungenerous, the sloppy are missing. Valposchiavo lives in tranquility and privacy, she is stately down to the simplest man, she is not servile and does not sweat. Even the well-known drinkers of the valley – and thank God there are those too! – They are not aggressive but melancholy, and if you see ladies crossing the square with ugly hats, you can be sure that they come from the north, the hats and the ladies.

Here, where there is only one policeman, mostly almost invisible; where social differences are ignored in good conscience; where every birth is an event and every funeral the welcome opportunity for general solidarity; where no reasonable person is so busy that he does not find half an hour at any time of the day to have a chat over a glass of wine – here the word "badòz" is used –: anyone who decides to come and live there is overwhelmed by the feeling of living in an intact world. And who wouldn't gladly indulge in this feeling?" (2)

Sources:
(1) Signatur II - Wolfgang Hildesheimer, hg. H. T. Rommerskirchen, 1989, unpag.
(2) Das Erlebnis des Unerwarteten, in Merian 14/8, 1961.