The village is surrounded by orchards. In the west and in the south the ground falls and borders on the basin of Brixen, that is the “Winegrowing region Neustift”, where the known white wine grapes “Müller Thurgau” and “Sylvaner” grow.

In the north and in the east, the village is surrounded by pine woods and by the biotope “Raier Moos”.
The biotope “Raier Moos” was originally a big lake, which Duke Frederick gave to the Abbey of Neustift in 1426 as a present. The abbey had the fishing rights. Over the centuries, the water level sunk steadily and the lake was covered by reeds. Today the “Raier Moos” is a biotope and it is very important for the conservation of many species of flora and fauna.
Even if the technical progress revolutionized the life of the farmers, the inhabitants of Raas keep alive the ancient tradition of bread donation that is the bread distribution on 1st September, the Day of Saint Aegidius.

Details on the Saint Aegidius celebration
Around 1850 the church of Raas was in great fire hazard. Therefore Raas’s farmers vowed to give every year, on the Feast Day of Saint Aegidiusden , bread to the poor. The church was saved and the tradition of the bread donation was introduced.

The tradition was kept alive for a long time. But after a while people thought it could be enough and stopped with it. At once there were crop failures.
Therefore they reintroduced the bread donation again after some years. Since then the tradition were celebrated every year, also in the hard years of the world wars, when the farmers had not enough bread themselves. Every farmer gave a certain amount of grain and every year it was the turn of an other farmer to bake the bread.

Only every 16 year it was the turn of the same farmer. The bread was distributed as follows: to begin with the neighbour of the farmer became some loaves of bread, the so-called “Warmer Stoß” (“warm portion”). Each of the other farmers received five loaves as “Koster” (“taster”), the sexton 20, the gravedigger 30. In addition to that, the “Augidi farmer” could keep a big number of the loaves for himself, which he served for free in the evening of the Day of Saint Aegidius to the people of the village who came to his house to celebrate.

Since 1974 the local fire service has taken over this tradition of the bread donation. Nowadays they go from door to door in order to collect a small donation for the Day of Saint Aegidius.