Car Hire Bolzano - Mini guide to Bolzano
Bolzano is a city in the region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, and is the capital of the province Bolzano-Bozen.
The ‘South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology’, located in Bolzano, is home to the mummified man, ‘Otzi’, found in a glacier in 1991. The area was settled first by the Raetians, then by the Romans in 15 BC, as an Army camp. Given ‘town’ status over 800 years ago, it developed into a place of trade in part to its location halfway between the two major cities of Venice and Augsburg. Buyers and sellers came from both cities four times a year for the markets, and two officers from Italy and Germany each worked in the mercantile magistrate formed in 1635. Because of this, four times a year the Italian city was a melting pot of cultures.
To this day, the inhabitants are a mix of German and Italian, and the influence can also be seen in the architecture and structure of the buildings and streets. Signs are posted in both languages (the official website of the city is in German and Italian, too), and restaurants boast both cuisines – this, plus the mix of industries (wine, dairy, fruit, tourism, handicrafts such as wood and ceramics) and natural attractions make the city a tourist destination.
The city offers many beautiful buildings and places to discover, among them Walther Square, which commemorates the German minstrel Walther von der Vogelweide. There is a Gothic cathedral, which is believed to have been built on the site of an ancient Roman villa, and several castles including Roncolo Castle, built on the precipice of a cliff. Built in 1237, the castle was damaged during a siege and restored in 1380 only to be blown up in 1520 and completely rebuilt.
In 1672 the eastern wing was destroyed by fire, and this has not been rebuilt and by 1858 it had fallen into such a state of disrepair that a section of it simply crumbled away. In the 1880, the Emperor of Austria donated the funds to have it restored, and it was then donated to Bolzano. It was restored again in the 1990s.
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