HOLIDAYS: Sued Tirol and its beautiful nature

Remo Knops — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 20:30:47 +0000

Perhaps you have noticed that the activity on my website was low the last weeks. The reason was our holidays in the beautiful Sued Tirol (Northern Italy). I wont bore you readers with all the details, but I want to share some interesting things to see in the region.

Sued Tirol with its beautiful nature is the ideal place for walking, cycling and mountain biking as well as enjoying the nature or simply relaxing. We stayed in the village of Tscherms, just a few kilometers of Merano. Merano is centrally placed in the region, on the crossing of different valley’s. So it’s the ideal place to start your day trips.

1. Citytrip to Bolzano

Bolzano has a beautiful old city center, and can be easily reached by train or bus. Merano – Bolzano takes a little more than 30 minutes by train. A great building is the cathedral of Bolzano, with its typical roof in nice colors. The city center has a typical covered passageway where nice shops, both traditional and modern, are “centralized”. When you are in Bolzano, visit the Museum of Archeology, where Otzi the Iceman is kept !! The story and research about the mummy is impressive and very interesting to see.

Picture 1: Thermal baths Merano; On the left the modern building, On the right the outside baths and park.

2. Thermen Merano

If relaxing is your goal on holidays, than the Thermal Baths in Merano are the place to be. The building is rather new and has a modern design by Matteo Thun. This modern design however is beautiful integrated in a large park, which make it an impressive complex. For instance if you are in a pool outside, you can view the skyline with mountains, in our case in the late September sun. The complex also has a beautifull designed sauna area.

Picture 2: Overview of the gardens and Castle Trautmannsdorff taken from one of the view-points.

3. The gardens of Trauttmansdorff Castle

14 hectares of Botanic garden with viewpoints design by Matteo Thun. Also if you are not specially interested in flowers the gardens are worthwhile visiting. In the gardens modern art and local history are embedded, and in the castle there is a Sued Tiroler Museum. The castle is known for the presence of Queen Elisabeth (also known as Sissi), who stayed there for a course treatment in Thermae Merano. Furthermore a one-of-a-kind wooden flipper game can be found there, which highlights typical parts of the Sued Tirol’s history.

4. Dorf Tirol

Dorf Tirol is a great place to walk, and the name can be translated in English as: Village of Tirol. This might emphasize the typical Tiroler culture, which is in the air when you walk through the village. There are a few routes which lead you to some great spots (e.g. castle Tirol) arround the village. If you want to hike, then you can take the cable-lift and explore the beautiful nature in the mountains next to Dorf Tirol. In Dorf Tirol, a few shops can be found where you can buy the typical traditional Tiroler costumes.

Sued Tirol is a great place to be, the Trenkwalder family was very friendly, kind and it was great to stay with them. The temperature in late September was ideal, not to cold like in the Netherlands and not to warm. Next time I hope to bring my road racing bike with me, to explorer some of the surrounding mountains.

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