Bolzano travel guide

Top 10 sights in Bolzano

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

1. 

   1

   Bolzano Victory Monument

   A triumphal arch of 1928 built on Mussolini's personal order in South Tyrol, annexed from Austria in 1919, with an inscription about bringing language and law to barbarians. It was repeatedly bombed by German-speaking activists; since 2014 a documentation centre in its base explains it rather than removing it.

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2. 

   2© Hubert Berberich (HubiB) · CC BY 3.0

   South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology

   The museum built around Ötzi, the 5,300-year-old man found in a melting glacier on the Italian-Austrian border in 1991 and kept here at minus six degrees. His copper axe, bearskin cap and the arrowhead in his shoulder are all displayed with him.

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3. 

   3© suedtirol-altoadige · CC BY 2.0

   Runkelstein Castle

   A castle of 1237 on a rock spur above the Talvera, whose interior walls carry the largest surviving cycle of secular medieval frescoes in Europe. Painted around 1400, they show Tristan, King Arthur and tournaments rather than any biblical scene.

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4. 

   4© CristianNX · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Museion

   Bolzano's museum of modern and contemporary art, founded in 1985 and housed since 2008 in a glass and aluminium cube by KSV that opens at both ends. Films are projected onto its façades at night so that the work can be seen from the street.

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5. 

   5© Vollmond11 · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Dominican Church

   A Dominican church of the thirteenth century in Bolzano whose San Giovanni chapel holds frescoes of about 1340 by painters of the Giotto school. They are among the earliest examples of Italian painting north of the Alps.

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6. 

   6© sailko · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Bolzano Cathedral

   The cathedral of the Bozen-Brixen diocese, Gothic, with a roof of green and yellow glazed tiles laid in patterns and an openwork sandstone spire of sixty-five metres finished in 1519. The market on the square in front has traded since the twelfth century.

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7. 

   7© Rehro · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Maria Weißenstein

   A pilgrimage church high in the Dolomites above Deutschnofen, founded after a peasant reported a vision of the Virgin in 1553 and served by Servite friars since the 18th century. John Paul II prayed here in 1988, and votive pictures line the cloister walls.

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8. 

   8© ManfredK · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Fragsburg

   A 17th-century hunting lodge of the counts of Fuchs on a wooded ledge above Merano, looking out across the Passeier valley. Long a country retreat and now a small hotel, it keeps its arcaded loggia and the terraced garden below.

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9. 

   9

   Sigmundskron Castle

   A large medieval castle outside Bolzano, first recorded in 945, which Reinhold Messner bought and opened in 2006 as the main site of his six mountain museums. The exhibition on the relationship between people and mountains is threaded through the ruins rather than housed in a building.

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10. 

    10© Sir Boris · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Festenstein Castle

    A thirteenth-century castle ruin above Andrian in South Tyrol, on a crag over the Adige valley. It is privately owned, and the keep and curtain walls are what remain.

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1. 

   1© This Photo was taken by Wolfgang Moroder. Feel free to use my photos, but ple · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Casa Littoria, Bolzano

   The former Casa del Fascio, built between 1939 and 1942 in rationalist style, whose façade carries a twenty-metre relief of Mussolini on horseback. Since 2017 a line by Hannah Arendt — nobody has the right to obey — has been projected across it in LED light.

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2. 

   2

   Prösels Castle

   A Gothic castle on the plateau below the Schlern, rebuilt as a Renaissance residence by Leonhard von Völs around 1520. Its arcaded courtyard and chapel survive, and it is used for concerts and as a museum in summer.

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3. 

   3© sailko · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Franciscan Friary

   A Franciscan friary in Bolzano with a Gothic cloister of about 1500 and a carved wooden altar of 1500 by Hans Klocker in the Marian chapel. The friars have run a school in the building since the sixteenth century.

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4. 

   4

   Karneid Castle

   A medieval castle at Karneid on a rock at the mouth of the Eggental, built in the twelfth century to control that valley road. It is privately owned and shown on guided visits in summer only.

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5. 

   5

   Muri-Gries Abbey

   A Benedictine abbey at Gries in Bolzano, established in 1845 by monks expelled from Muri in the Swiss canton of Aargau. Its old parish church holds a late Gothic carved altar of 1471 by Michael Pacher, and the abbey still makes wine from its own vineyards.

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6. 

   6© ManfredK at German Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Hocheppan Castle

   A twelfth-century castle above Missian near Eppan, whose chapel holds Romanesque frescoes of about 1200 — among the most important in South Tyrol, including one of the earliest depictions of a dumpling in European art.

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7. 

   7© Syrio · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Treuenstein Castle

   A medieval fortification on the northern edge of Bolzano, locally called the round tower, of which the tower and stretches of wall survive. It guarded the road up the Sarntal valley.

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8. 

   8© Beckstet · CC BY-SA 3.0

   St. Jacob's Church, Kastelaz

   A small Romanesque church on the Kastelaz hill above Tramin, visited for the frescoes that ring its apse: a frieze of fantastic hybrid beasts painted about 1220, among the oldest wall painting in South Tyrol.

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9. 

   9© Ibtw · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Rohrerhaus

   A farmhouse at Sarnthein first recorded in 1288, kept as a museum with its blackened kitchen, panelled parlour and byre in place. It shows how an alpine farm in the Sarntal worked before the twentieth century.

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