Growing up I heard many tales of a mysterious Russian professor who came to live with bears in Cavria. Some said he was a spy, others an eccentric academic. In fact, his name was Peter Krott, he was Swiss, and he wrote a well-known book called Bears in the Family which featured my great uncle “Zio ‘Milio” Ambrosi who housed Krott – and Cavria – where Krott brought his bears to live in alpine luxury when the townspeople of Carisolo grew tired of having bears roaming around town. Pictured are Zio Milio, and Krott’s bears, and his son. For a long time, bears had been hunted to extinction in the Adamello – Brenta area, but over the last 25 years, they have been reintroduced by biologists into the Parco Adamello Brenta, and so bears do roam these mountains today. A few years ago, on the road down from Cavria, I spotted a cub bear digging around a stump.
