What else can you experience in Bolzano?
The Tourist board provides you with all the online information you need for an unforgettable stay! Enjoy it!
With its 106.000 inhabitants, Bolzano-Bozen is South Tyrol’s largest city and capital. And yet it’s so small that residents and guests alike greatly appreciate the fact that everything is within such easy reach. Either by bicycle – the city has 50 km of cycle paths – or on the well-developed public transport network.
Bolzano is connected to the three nearest mountains plateaus by cableways, each of which covers a difference in altitude of around one thousand metres: the Colle-Kohlern cableway, the Ritten-Renon cableway and the Jenesien-San Genesio cableway (temporary out of order). You can take one of them and spend the day on one of the three mountain. There you can go walking or mountain-biking for hours, following many well signed paths close to vineyards, silent forests, charming villages and mountain huts.
From the town, looking eastwards along the Eisack-Isarco valley, you can see the about 30km distant suggestive Rosengarten-Catinaccio Mountain Range (3.004 m), with the characteristic Vajolet-Peaks, in the very heart of the Dolomites. At the same distance, you can reach dozens of beautiful Alpine hiking and biking destinations by car or public transport. In every season, the mountains of South Tyrol offer a beautyful alpine nature that lives in harmony with human activities and a genuine hospitality.
With only 699 millimetres of average annual rainfall, Bolzano has a dry and pleasant climate like Italian cities much further south such as Venice (700 mm), Florence (776 mm) or Rome (768 mm).
In South Tyrol there are on average more than 2.000 hours of sunshine per year, and the hotspots like the capital city even reach 2.500 hours of sunshine, i.e. two thirds of the total annual time.
Due to its location in a natural valley based in the south of the Alps, Bolzano has a milder climate than many other alpine cities. Especially in autumn and spring, temperatures are more mediterrean than alpine.
Bolzano is
not only a multi-ethnic centre, a bridge between german and italian cultures,
but also offers its residents and guests a high quality of life. You can look
forward to ideal conditions for your meeting or event here, while at the same
time being able to indulge in a whole range of different delights.
In its Italian-style open-air restaurants, in lovely old-austrian coffee houses, on the meadows along the rivers: Bolzano invites you to relax and enjoy a cuisine that has the best of the Tyrolean and the Italian traditions, accompanied by the finest wines produced in the local vineyards – Gewürztraminer, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Noir and Lagrein. Due to the local trilingual Free University and the tourism-based economy, in bistros and pubs you can hear people speaking German, Italian, Ladin, English and many other languages. Let’s start a conversation having a drink together!
In Bolzano you can enjoy the typical Italian “aperitivo lungo”, a sort of “happy hour” having some appetizers and a drink. Instead of a glass of wine or beer, you can try a “Hugo”, the long drink invented by the local barman Roland Gruber in 2005. Mint, Prosecco, lime, elderflower syrup, sparkling water and some ice cubes for a refreshing moment to share with friends!
Bolzano’s cultural offer starts from its most popular attraction, Ötzi the Icemen: a glacier mummy from the Copper Age discovered accidentally in 1991 on the Schnalstal-Val Senales glacier in western South Tyrol and preserved down to the present day. Since his discovery, the Iceman has provided new data from prehistoric times for countless research disciplines around the world. You can see him and dream by daylight of his fascinating age visiting the South Tyrol Museum of Archeology.
Do you like shopping? Let’s visit the “Portici-Lauben”, gothic arcades built in the 12th century which has been the first street in Bolzano and are still today the commercial heart of the city. Do you want to go back to the middle age and visit a perfect preserved fortress with original frescoes inside? The Runkelstein Castle is waiting for you 20 minutes walking from the Walther-Square, in front of the cathedral church. Beautifully preserved medieval buildings are also the St.Francis-Church with a frescoed cloister, the St.Dominik-Church and the Maretsch Castle in the town centre.
On the west end of Bolzano you can visit Gries, a former village that became part of the city in the 20ies of the last century. Here you can fallow the footsteps of the empress Sissi of Austria on the Guntschna Walk, or visit the baroque Church of the Benedictine Monastery of Muri-Gries. You can also have a tour of the monastery’s old cellar and taste some vintage bottles of the Lagrein red wine, the most authentic gastronomy product of Bolzano, which has been awarded internationally many times.
Foto credits IDM/Alfi/Guadagnini
The Tourist board provides you with all the online information you need for an unforgettable stay! Enjoy it!