Today’s Hotel Cavallino Bianco is one of the oldest hotels in the valley, and has been welcoming travellers since the far-back 16th century. The hotel is first mentioned by the name of “Weisses Rössl” in the mid-19th century, when it was purchased by Johann Peter Lardschneider.

In around 1898, painter Christian Delago purchased a house beneath the art school, where he and his wife Josefina Schmalzl established a coffee house; by 1906, they had expanded it to the Dolomitenhotel Madonna. Delago also relocated his workshop to the hotel, which boasted 25 bedrooms, a garden, a veranda, and an art studio for guests.

For over two decades, it was possible to take a chairlift up to St. Jakob. The lift ran from today’s Stua Zirm farm up to the meadow below the Jakober Hof farm.

The chairlift, which Robert Höglinger from the Hotel Regina had purchased second-hand, first began running in 1848. In later years, it was converted into a gondola lift, and, in 1960, its ownership was transferred to Hansi Peristi from Banch. The lift was demolished in 1970.

In St. Jakob or, to be precise, from Pertan to the Gasthaus Somont, a small ski lift was also in operation from 1960 to 1969.

The St. Ulrich cable car was the first-ever cable car connection to the Seiser Alm. From 1935 onwards, its two wooden cabins transported 15 to 16 passengers up to the mountain in just 6 minutes. This cable car laid the ground stones for modern winter tourism, and was followed by further ski lifts on the Seiser Alm and on the slopes of Ronc and Vidalonch.

The cable car was expanded for the first time in 1968, while 1999 saw the construction of the gondola lift, capable of transporting 2,200 passengers per hour up to the Seiser Alm.