Jonathan McRae

And a giant mirror was set up in December 2006 with controlled orientation above the mountainside at 1,100 meters on the Alpes Gallola, which consists of 14 sheets of steel which are 8 meters wide and 5 meters high.

And this basically...

acts as a mirror that tracks the sun like a heliostat.

So when the sun goes up in the sky, it continues and follows this sun and points the sunlight at the town that's in the shadow of the mountain.

That is so cool.

It says here, the mirror functions as a heliostat and the mirror costs only €100,000 or approximately €540 per resident.

And it means that during the day in this town, you can have reflected sunlight and it feel like the day as opposed to constantly being in the winter for three months or whatever it is, nearly three months.

I imagine...

unlike our own planners who often spend an enormous amount of time, quite rightly, doing ecological studies, I would imagine they took a quick look at it here, Italy, and they probably went, you know what, I'm sure we'll be fine.

Yeah, do you want it to be sunnier?

Probably birds, I would imagine, would have been the most at risk, right, is my guess from reflected sunlight.

Like, what if you're

If your flight path is there and all of a sudden this giant thing is making you think the sun is in different directions.

I don't know, maybe you're right.

Maybe there are species that are affected by it.

Who knows?

The town was featured in a 2009 Italian-Canadian film called Lo Specchio, The Mirror, as well as the 2019 film Che Tempo.

According to a former mayor, the idea behind the project doesn't have a scientific basis, but a human one.

It comes from a desire to let people socialize in winter when the town shuts down due to the cold and dark.

I'd like to go there.