Castles of Alto Adige, South Tyrol: Where Austria Lingers

In this second part of the castle series, I want to turn your attention to the northern part of Trentino Alto Adige, to Alto Adige itself. This is a part of the region I spent less time in as a child, though in later years I have visited often, since we have family who live there. One of the things you notice as you travel north through Trentino Alto Adige is how the architecture gradually turns more and more Tyrolean, until by the time you reach Bolzano the city feels almost Austrian rather than Italian. There is good reason for that. For centuries this land belonged to the County of Tyrol and later the Habsburg Empire, becoming part of Italy only after the First World War, and that long Austrian history is still written plainly into the towers, the shutters, and the language you hear on the streets today.

Here are some of the castles worth knowing in this part of Italy.

Castel Flavon, Haselburg, Bolzano

This castle has been a real discovery, not only because it sits so close to the centre of Bolzano, but because it holds a wonderful restaurant where we had dinner with family a few years ago. Having dinner inside a castle is something magical, and it is an experience I would strongly encourage anyone who loves these structures to have at least once. The food itself reflected the cultural heritage of this part of Italy, shaped by its closeness to Austria, but it was what came after dinner that has stayed with me the longest, sitting around a brazier, sipping grappa, while the stars glittered overhead. That is a memory I will always keep among my most cherished.

Flavon Castle perches on a rocky outcrop high above Bolzano, and its story stretches back to the twelfth century, when the Lords of Haselberg built the first complex, already fortified along its more vulnerable southern and eastern flanks. Between 1474 and 1541, under the Lords of Fiè, the castle grew substantially, gaining a double-arcaded hall, a new residential wing to the north, and fresco cycles that still decorate its rooms today. After centuries of change, Flavon was carefully restored in 2001 and 2002 under architect Dietmar Dejori, who freed the old arcades from later additions, uncovered its cellar rooms, and rebuilt the collapsed northern wing, returning the castle to its original three-winged form.

Today Flavon houses that restaurant, along with spaces for seminars, conferences, and weddings, and its SkyBar offers views over Bolzano that are worth the visit alone. This, to me, is exactly why castles matter beyond being museums. A place like Flavon is not simply preserved behind glass, it is used, lived in, celebrated in, the way it always was. Many other castles across Alto Adige have found the same second life, as hotels, restaurants, or private homes, Fragsburg, Korb, and Rundegg among them, and I think that continuity is worth celebrating rather than mourning as somehow less authentic than a museum would be.

Castello Principesco di Merano

Merano itself is a gorgeous alpine town north of Bolzano, and it is worth visiting even if castles are not your particular interest. I have been back many times, and if you visit in late autumn or late summer, the mountains towering above the town, still dusted with snow at their peaks, will genuinely take your breath away.

Castello Principesco sits behind the town hall, right in Merano's historic centre at the foot of Monte Benedetto, and I have actually been inside, on a quick visit some time back. If you are someone who loves castles but does not always want to commit to a sprawling structure with room after room to work through, this is the one I would point you toward, small and genuinely manageable in a single visit, without ever feeling as though you have skipped something important.

Sigismondo d'Austria, known as "il Danaroso," the Wealthy, built the castle in the second half of the fifteenth century as his city residence, and with its comparatively light fortifications it always resembled a finely decorated fortified house more than a true stronghold. It served as a princely residence into the sixteenth century, and in 1516 it even hosted Emperor Maximilian I. After passing through various hands and falling into disrepair, the comune of Merano purchased it in 1875, and between 1878 and 1880 it was carefully restored under the internationally renowned architect Friedrich von Schmidt, who also directed the restoration of Vienna's Stephansdom. Today it holds the Museo Castello Principesco, its maiolica stoves, wood-panelled rooms, and ladies' chambers offering a genuine glimpse into life in the late Middle Ages, its furnishings Gothic and Renaissance in style, and its chapel still holding fine sixteenth century frescoes.

If you only have one day to give to Merano, I would build it around three things. Start at the Castello Principesco, since its modest size means you can take your time without losing the whole morning to it. From there, walk the Passeggiata di Sissi, the path dedicated to Empress Elisabeth of Austria, better known as Sissi, who first arrived in Merano in 1870 seeking a gentle climate for her health and returned again and again after that, drawn back by the mountain air and the quiet of the place. The walk connects the town centre with the gardens of Trauttmansdorff Castle over several stages, each with its own small story attached, and it is every bit as beautiful whether the trees are in full leaf or the peaks above are still catching the last of the winter snow. Finish the day with a proper Tyrolean dinner, canederli, speck, and a glass of Müller-Thurgau, one of my favourites whenever I am in the area, or a Forst beer, brewed just outside Merano in Foresta since 1857, and you will have had, in a single day, everything that makes this part of Alto Adige so worth slowing down for.

The Castles Around Merano

Merano's castles are so numerous that, over time, a proper castle tour has grown up around them, and it is worth knowing that this one town alone could occupy a castle lover for days. Castel Rametz, wrapped in its own vineyards, still holds its original southern wing and tower, and today pairs a restaurant with its own working cellar. Castel Planta, at the entrance to the Val Passiria, is known for its long ivy-covered walls and round corner towers, while La Polveriera, once the town's gunpowder store between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, now stands as an evocative ruin above the Tappeiner promenade. A number of the others have quietly become hotels in their own right, Castel Labers, dating back to the eleventh century, and Castel Rundegg, with its wellness spa and red and white shuttered tower, among them. Between all of these and Castello Principesco itself, Merano might genuinely be the single best base in the region for anyone who wants to spend a few days doing nothing but castle spotting.

On My Wishlist

Two castles I have driven past many times, admired from the road, but never yet stepped inside, sit firmly on my own wishlist for next time.

Castel Presule, Schloss Prösels, stands in Fiè allo Sciliar on the Alpe di Siusi, and although the inscription over its portal points to the era of Maximilian I, its true origins reach back to around 1200, when the Lords of Fiè first commissioned it. In the sixteenth century Leonhard von Völs restored it as his own residence, and the Counts of Völs, remembered as both great patrons of the arts and notorious witch hunters, lived there for generations afterward. Opened to the public in 1982, the castle now holds frescoes of hunting scenes in its Knights' Hall, a collection of nineteenth century armour and weapons, and modern paintings, alongside a medieval powder tower and a loggia of pointed arches in its inner courtyard. Every year in early June it hosts the Oswald von Wolkenstein Ride, a medieval tournament drawing in every village on the Sciliar plateau.

Castel Trostburg, also known as Wöhrenstein, rises dramatically on the slope above Ponte Gardena, impossible to miss as you drive toward the Val Gardena. First recorded in 1173 as the seat of Cunrath de Trosperch, it later passed to the Lords of Velturno and Villandro, before becoming, from the fourteenth century onward, the family seat of the Counts of Wolkenstein-Trostburg for some six hundred years. It is believed to be the birthplace of the medieval minstrel Oswald von Wolkenstein, and has even served as a film set in more recent times. Saved from decay by a private initiative of the South Tyrolean Castle Institute, it now houses the South Tyrolean Castle Museum, its permanent exhibition tracing the region's castles through scale models, reachable via a forty-five minute walk along the Trostburg path.

Both are firmly on the list for my next visit north.

Two More, Seen From Afar

Two further castles deserve at least a brief mention, both seen rather than entered so far. Castel Roncolo, near Bolzano, is celebrated for its remarkable cycle of secular medieval frescoes, among the most important of their kind anywhere. Castel Firmiano, now home to the Messner Mountain Museum, sits high above the city and is impossible to miss from almost anywhere in Bolzano.

Closing

In Part One I left you with the beginning of a castle wishlist for Trentino Alto Adige, and this second half of the region has only added to it, Presule and Trostburg chief among them, but really the whole of Merano besides, since one town alone could keep a castle lover busy for days. That is rather the point of a wishlist, it is never meant to close, only to grow a little longer each time you look properly at a place.

If working out which of these castles you could actually fit together, and where you would need to base yourself to do it, sounds like a genuinely useful thing to have, that is exactly what I am building next. More on that soon.