Brief history of Bolzano
Located in a predominantly sunny, sheltered bowl, for centuries Bolzano was a valley market town and way station whose fortunes in the Middle Ages swayed as the counts of Tyrol and the bishops of Trento competed for power. The town passed to the Habsburgs in the fourteenth century, then at the beginning of the nineteenth century Bavaria took control, opposed by Tyrolese patriot and military leader Andreas Hofer. His battle in 1809 to keep the Tyrol under Austrian rule was only temporarily successful, as in the same year the Austrian emperor ceded the Tyrol to the Napoleonic kingdom of Italy. More changes followed, as Bolzano was handed back to Austria until World War I, whereupon it passed, like the rest of the province, to Italy.
Museo Archeologico
Bolzano’s top attraction is the Museo Archeologico, a superb and informative exhibition built around the Ice Man, a frozen, mummified body discovered in the ice of the Ötzaler Alps in 1991, just 92m from the border with Austria. At first a policeman estimated the body – nicknamed “Ötzi” – to be around 100 years old; he was out by around 5200 years, as later experts dated the corpse to around 3300 BC. Visitors queue up to peer into the €200,000-per-year, temperature-controlled cell where the surprisingly diminutive Ötzi lies dry-frozen, his complexion that of dry-cured ham and glistening with tiny ice crystals. The rest of the exhibits include possessions found on or around the body – his still serviceable bearskin cap, his longbow and arrows, firelighting gear, a shamanic first-aid kit – as well as an incredibly realistic, life-size silicon model showing what experts think Ötzi would have looked like and numerous displays and films explaining how he came to be preserved on the mountainside. The Ötzi story is one of the most fascinating archeology has ever produced and arguments about who he was and how he died rage on in academia.
Strada del Vino
Fans of the grape are well catered for around Bolzano, with Strada del Vino or Wine Road enabling visitors to combine with sightseeing with tastings. The 40km route proper begins at Nallas (Nals) just north of Bolzano, but you can also join it at Appiano (Eppan) and wend your way through sunny vineyards to Salurno (Salurn) halfway between Bolzano and Trento. This is one of the oldest wine-growing areas of all German-speaking regions – some claim the tradition goes back to the Iron Age – and it’s also one of the smallest in Italy. Certainly, the wine industry was well established in Roman times, with the colonists from down south finding that locally made barrels with metal hoops were much better for transporting wine back to Rome than their clay amphorae. The vines in the region are often strung on wide pergolas, the traditional method of viticulture here, which allows the Ora breeze blowing from Lake Garda to circulate around the grapes, giving a beneficial cooling effect. Others are on hillsides too steep for machinery, so all work still has to be done by hand.
The route’s main halt is Caldaro (Kaltern), home to many sixteenth-century buildings in Uberetsch style, combining northern Gothic and southern Renaissance architectural details. Wines from the vineyards around this small village have won numerous awards; one of the best places to taste them is Punkt, a wine bar/information point on the main square. Alternatively, two cellars near the village centre also offer wine tasting – Kellerei Kaltern, and Erste & Neue Kellerei. Within walking distance, too, on the Wine Road on the way to Lake Caldaro, the producer Manincor is well worth a visit for its combination of modern architecture and traditional estate buildings, as well as its fine vintages.
Another centre to head for is the village of Termeno (Tramin), from which the varietal Gewürtztraminer gets its name.
Bolzano’s cable cars
A trip up in any of Bolzano’s three cable cars gives a small taste of the high peaks that surround the city; for fares and times, see sii.bz.it. The first ascends from Via Renòn (Rittnerstrasse), a ten-minute walk from the train station, to Soprabolzano (Oberbozen). It’s the longest cable-car journey in Europe, with the largest change in height. Alternatively the San Genesio/Jenesien cable car offers stupendous views of the Catinaccio/Rosengarten massif – the station is at Via Sarentino, 1.5km north of the town centre along the river (bus #12 or #14). On the high Alpine pastures at the top, you’ll see blond-maned Haflinger horses grazing. The third cable car goes to Colle/Kohlern from the station across the river south of the train station at Ponte Campiglio. In operation since 1908, it is the oldest cable car in the world.