Bondo, Switzerland

Bondo (Romansh: Buondⓘ) is a village and a former municipality in the district of Maloja in the Swiss canton of Grisons.

The municipality is located near the Swiss–Italian border south of the river Mera in the Val Bregaglia (known as Bergell in German).

The valley floor is so deep that parts of the village do not receive any sunlight in winter.

[1][2] The municipality of Bondo also includes the smaller village of Promontogno and, above that on a rocky outcrop, the ruins of the fort Castelmur.

Of the rest of the land, 0.6% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (59.3%) is non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains).

[3] In 1367 Bondo, together with the rest of Unterporta, joined the League of God's House (German: Gotteshausbund).

During the 16th century some of the population left Bondo to Italy, and later to eastern Europe (either as bakers or soldiers).

In 1621, during the Confusion, Spanish troops burned the entire town to the ground, destroying about 248 structures.

In August 2017 a series of debris flows from the adjacent mountain Piz Cengalo destroyed dozens of buildings and a bridge in Bondo, and resulted in the disappearance of eight hikers in Val Bondesca, up the valley from Bondo.

The Castelmur medieval fortifications, the church of S. Maria and the Palazzo Salis are listed as Swiss heritage sites of national significance.

The Hotel Bregaglia on the mountainside
View of Bondo from the north, c. 1870
Video of the debris flow on the 23 of August 2017
19th-century photograph of a drawing of the Hotel Bregaglia, Promontogno, taken from Bondo.
Bondo, and Castlemur, Promontogno, from the south by John Robert Cozens , (or a copy of the Cozens by J. M. W. Turner ).
Watercolour, c. 1880, of Bondo from the south-west, the road from Soglio, by Madeline Marrable .
Topographical drawing of Bondo, c. 1770
Bondo's western approach in 1884, detail of a watercolour by Helga von Cramm (1840-c. 1901)