Bolzano

South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology

Museum · 46.49996, 11.34963

Via Museo 43, 39100 Bolzano

here rests Ötzi, the man who came out of the ice: a natural mummy of more than 5,300 years ago, found in 1991 on the Similaun glacier, on the border between Italy and Austria, and kept in a cell at minus 6 degrees with controlled humidity. Study has reconstructed what he ate, ibex and cereals, how he dressed, the state of his health, arthritis and therapeutic tattoos, and how he died, from an arrow in the shoulder. Beside the mummy his equipment is on show: a copper axe, bow and arrows, a wooden backpack, shoes padded with hay. The permanent route runs over several floors with original finds, 3D reconstructions and multimedia. Booking advised at weekends and in high season. Allow 1.5 to 2 hours.

Iceman.it

Piazza Walther and the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta

Square · free entry · 46.49833, 11.35486

the main square of the city, opened at the beginning of the nineteenth century at the wish of the Bavarian king Maximilian and named after the medieval poet Walther von der Vogelweide, whose statue stands at the centre. Around it, Palazzo Campofranco of the eighteenth century and the cafés with their tables outside. On the east side the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, Gothic, with a polychrome roof of glazed tiles in green, gold and white and a filigree bell tower; inside, frescoes of the fifteenth century, a carved Gothic pulpit and, under the floor, the remains of three earlier churches, an early Christian one of the fourth century, an early medieval one and a Romanesque one. Entry to the Cathedral is free. During Advent the square holds the Christmas Markets with more than 80 wooden huts.

Via dei Portici

Walk · free entry · 46.49965, 11.35456

three hundred metres of round arched arcades, begun in the twelfth century at the wish of the bishops of Trento as the core of the merchant quarter, and for more than 800 years the commercial heart of the city. Three storey houses with inner courtyards, wrought iron signs and faded frescoes on the fronts; under the arcades, traditional shops of ceramics, Tyrolean clothing, speck and cheese beside the chains of today. At number 30 stands the Old Town Hall, now the Historical Archive, with the city's coat of arms on the Gothic arch; a little further on the baroque Palazzo Mercantile, home of the Mercantile Museum, whose route goes down into the old vaulted cellars. From here the side alleys open: Via Argentieri, Via della Mostra, Via Bottai.

Piazza delle Erbe

Market · free entry · 46.49978, 11.35261

the fruit and vegetable market has been held here since 1295, every day except Sunday, in the morning: apples, pears, cabbages, pumpkins and, in autumn, the porcini of the Alto Adige valleys. It is a real market, where the people of Bolzano do their shopping, and the sellers pass from German to Italian inside the same sentence. At the centre stands the Neptune Fountain of 1745, around it houses with frescoed fronts and arcades, between Gothic and baroque. From the square you take Via Dr. Streiter, where the Museum of Natural Sciences has its home, and Via Bottai. In autumn you buy roast chestnuts, and on Saturday morning there is the flower market as well.

Castel Roncolo

Castle · 46.51749, 11.35883

built in 1237 on a spur of rock at the entrance to the Val Sarentina, it is one of the most important frescoed castles in Europe. The cycle of secular frescoes, painted between the fourteenth and the fifteenth century, tells of hunting scenes, knightly tournaments and literary episodes drawn from the Arthurian cycles and from Tristan and Isolde: a visual record of medieval courtly life. The castle, enlarged and restored several times, the last in the two thousands, today holds a museum with a multimedia route. You reach it on foot from the centre in about thirty minutes along the Talvera promenade, well signposted, by bike on the cycle path, or with bus 12, Castel Roncolo stop.