Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Merano (Meran)
POP 38,200 / ELEV 325M
With its leafy boulevards, birdsong, oleander and cactus, Merano feels like you've
stumbled into a valley Shangri-La. Long lauded for its sunny microclimate, this
poignantly pretty town (and one-time Tyrolean capital) was a Habsburg-era spa, the hot
destination of its day, favoured by the Austrian royals, Freud, Kafka and Pound. The Ju-
gendstil (art nouveau) villas, recuperative walks and the grand riverside Kurhaus of this
era fan out from its intact medieval core. The city's therapeutic traditions have served it
well in the new millennium, with spa hotels drawing a new generation of health-conscious
visitors and a booming organics movement in the surrounding valleys.
German is widely used here, sausage and beer stalls dot the streets and an annual open-
air play celebrates Napoleonic-era Tyrolean freedom fighter Andreas Hofer; despite the
palm trees, you're far closer to Vienna than Rome.
Sights
Castel Trauttmansdorff
(
www.trauttmansdorff.it
;
Via San Valentino 51a; garden & museum adult/reduced €10.80/7.90;
9am-6pm Apr-Nov, to 11pm Fri summer)
You could give over an entire day to these beautiful
botanical gardens a little outside Merano. Exotic cacti and palms, fruit trees and vines,
beds of lilies, iris and tulips all cascade down the hillside surrounding a mid-19th-century
castle where Sissi - Empress Elisabeth - spent the odd summer. Inside,
Touriseum
charts
two centuries of travel in the region, exploring the changing nature of our yearning for the
mountains. There's a restaurant and a cafe by the lily pond.
GARDEN
Kunst Meran
( 0473 21 26 43;
www.kunstmeranoarte.org
;
Via Portici 16; adult/reduced €5/4; 10am-6pm Tue-
Sun, 11am-7pm summer)
Shows of high-profile international and regional artists are installed
in this contemporary gallery, a thoughtful refiguring of a skinny medieval town house.
Look out for monthly talks over
aperitivo
.
ART GALLERY
Castel Tirolo
(Schlosstirol; 0473 22 02 21;
www.schlosstirol.it
;
admission €6; 10am-5pm Tue-Sun mid-Mar-Dec,
to 6pm Aug)
The ancestral seat of the counts of Tyrol is home to a dynamically curated mu-
MUSEUM
