BOLZANO-Italian name and BOZEN-the German name for a
lovely city of approx. 100,000 people in the Dolomites. It is about 2 hours to
Innsbruck, Austria and 4 hours to Munich, Germany.
The layout of the city, its design, its colorful
architecture, outdoor cafes, murals, statues, open markets full of fruit,
veggies, wine, nuts, meat and cheeses, flowers and breads make it a pastoral
venture through the windy and cobble-stoned streets. You will find villas
everywhere, shopping galore, and above the city, hills surrounding it with
swathes of green slopes in every angle and castles, churches and much more.
Hillsides offer flowers wild and full of life, cows wandering, sheep, ponies
and horses and cable cars, in different parts of the city, taking you from 1,000-2,000
meters above the city and then through forests and villages where you’ll come
across pine forest walks, children playing on open plush-green hillsides, barns
and you know deep in your heart, issues of drugs or guns or violence is not a
part of this culture. It is peaceful and beautiful. It is not an alpine region
with towering glaciers, but it is lovely, calming, soothing and a joy to simply
wander around.
It tends to attract walkers and bicyclists, and if you
stay in Bolzano, as I did, and if you receive a free transportation/museum card
you can use the cable cars, hilltop trains to go from village to village and
throughout the city for free. The food (excellent), the wine, great (FLASH-the
entire region is wine growing and throughout there are vineyards circling the
city) tons of walking, a river, parks, Middle Ages castle where you can sit in
a cobble-stoned courtyard, dine and drink and then visit the castle interior
full of Middle-Ages remnants, murals and wall paintings that take you back 800
years. People speak English, German and of course, Italian. If you can, visit
and you'll be glad you did.
Bolzano is a city in the South Tyrol province of north
Italy, set in a valley amid hilly vineyards. It's a gateway to the Dolomites
mountain range in the Italian Alps. In the medieval city center, the South
Tyrol Museum of Archaeology features the Neolithic mummy called Ötzi the
Iceman. Nearby is the imposing 13th-century Mareccio Castle, and the Duomo di
Bolzano cathedral with its Romanesque and Gothic architecture.
Bolzano, the provincial capital of South Tyrol, is anything but
provincial. Once a stop on the coach route between Italy and the flourishing
Austro-Hungarian Empire, this small city is worldly and engaged, a long-time
conduit between cultures that has more recently become home to Europe's first
trilingual university. Its quality of life – one of Italy's highest – is
reflected in its openness, youthful energy and an all-pervading greenness. A
stage-set-pretty backdrop of grassy, rotund hills sets off rows of
pastel-painted townhouses, while bicycles ply riverside paths and wooden market
stalls are laid out with Alpine cheese, speck (cured ham) and dark, seeded
loaves. German may be the first language of 95% of the region, but Bolzano is
an anomaly. Today its Italian-speaking majority – a legacy of Mussolini's
brutal Italianization program of the 1920s and the more recent siren call of
education and employment opportunities – looks both north and south for
inspiration.
Castel Roncolo: This stunningly located castle was
built in 1237 but is renowned for its vivid 14th-century frescoes. These are
particularly rare, with themes that are drawn from secular literature,
including the tale of Tristan and Isolde, as well as depictions of day-to-day
courtly life.
