The rich region attracted many foreign visitors.
The House of Fugger funded a laboratory of the famous alchemist Paracelsus
there. The prominent French thinker Montesquieu visited and described the
copper mines in Špania Dolina upon the encouragement of Isaac Newton. The
ancient tradition of making bobbin lace led to the establishment of a bobbin
lace craft school in 1883. The copper mines were closed down in 1888 and the
economy of the village is now based primarily on tourism
