The best mountain towns in the province of Bolzano/Bozen
The province of Bolzano/Bozen is the part of Italy where the Dolomites turn pale pink at dusk and the valley floors smell of cut hay and woodsmoke. Houses are built of stone at the base and larch above, with painted lintels, deep balconies and shingles gone silver in the weather. The food is Tyrolean before it is Italian: canederli in broth, barley soup, speck sliced thick, apple strudel, then a glass of Lagrein or Vernatsch from vines that climb the slopes below the rock. Winter brings groomed pistes and Christmas markets in arcaded streets; summer brings alpine pasture walks, via ferrata routes and huts serving lunch at altitude.
Most visitors converge on Cortina d'Ampezzo just over the provincial border, or on the road up to Lago di Braies, where the boathouse photograph has made the shuttle bus compulsory in high season. The reasons are real enough: the peaks are extraordinary and the infrastructure is excellent. But car parks fill before breakfast, the lakeside path moves at a shuffle, and the price of a plate of canederli rises with the crowd.
The same rock and the same kitchens continue up every side valley. The Val Pusteria, the Val Gardena, the Alta Badia and the Val Venosta all hold towns with their own lifts, their own bakeries and their own patron saint processions, where fewer people go and the mountain does not have to be shared. These are the ones in this list, small enough to walk across in an afternoon and close enough to the passes to be worth a detour.
Of the 10 communes we have mapped in the province of Bolzano/Bozen, 8 qualify as mountain towns: each sits in the mountains. The smallest, Glurns, has 937 residents.
If you are still choosing, we have also written The best ski towns that eat well in the province of Bolzano/Bozen and The best towns worth staying overnight in the province of Bolzano/Bozen.
Glurns
Why visit Glurns
The town sits at 907 metres in the upper valley, twenty minutes by car from both the Austrian and Swiss borders, on the Adige river at the southern entrance to the national park. City status was awarded by Emperor Henry of Bohemia in 1304, an honor that has stayed attached to the place ever since even as the population inside the walls stayed under a thousand.
After the Battle of Calven in 1499, the Habsburgs under Emperor Maximilian I rebuilt the town as a bulwark against the forces of the Three Leagues of Graubünden, and it is that rebuilding which produced the fortification standing today. The walled core and the church outside it mark the two halves of the town: the streets and Lauben arcades, paved in cobble, enclosed within the ring of walls, and the parish church standing apart on the riverbank, holding its own late Gothic frescoes away from the defended center.
A city built for defense against the Three Leagues of Graubünden still reads, in its layout, as a place organized entirely around the line where the walls stand and the ground just beyond them: the guarded interior on one side, the river and the open approach to the mountains on the other.
The village sits at 907 metres.
What to see in Glurns
- Mura cittadine. Walls built under Emperor Maximilian I after 1499, following the Battle of Calven, as a bulwark against the forces of the Three Leagues of Graubünden. The patrol path still runs continuous along the inside face.
- Centro storico. Walled core of unbroken three-storey Lauben arcades along the two main streets, paved in stone and listed on the Borghi più belli d'Italia.
- Chiesa di San Pancrazio. Parish church just outside the walls on the bank of the Adige, with a Gothic nave and a series of late medieval wall frescoes inside.
How to get to Glurns
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Bolzano is roughly 102 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May through October is the open season in the upper Val Venosta. Late May brings green on the valley floor and the start of the Stelvio Park hiking calendar from Glorenza north. June through September is the busiest period, with the Stelvio passes open, the Adige cycle path running from Resia south, and Glorenza markets under the arcades on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Corvara in Badia
Why visit Corvara in Badia
Corvara sits at 1,568 metres in a wide basin at the head of the Val Badia, below the rock spire of the Sassongher and inside the Dolomites UNESCO area. Ladin is the everyday language: in the 2024 census 87 percent of residents named it as their first tongue, with Italian and German distant second and third.
The settlement was a scattered group of farms until tourism arrived in the early twentieth century, and Corvara is considered the birthplace of organised Alpine tourism in the Val Badia. The village is one of four bases on the Sellaronda, the forty-kilometre ski circuit that loops the Sella massif through Corvara, Arabba, Canazei and Selva di Val Gardena on a single lift pass.
Above the village, the Pralongià plateau opens a long view to the Marmolada glacier. The Gran Risa piste at the next hamlet of La Villa hosts the men's giant slalom on the World Cup tour each December.
The village sits at 1568 metres.
What to see in Corvara in Badia
- Chiesa di Santa Caterina. Late Gothic church first documented in 1347 and consecrated to Saint Catherine in 1452, holding the only well-preserved winged altar in Val Badia, dated 1520.
- Sassongher. Rock peak at 2,665 metres above the village, the signature silhouette of Corvara and a classic via ferrata climb on the eastern flank.
- Altopiano di Pralongià. Grassy plateau above the village reached by cable car, with open views to the Marmolada glacier and the surrounding Dolomite groups.
How to get to Corvara in Badia
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Bolzano is roughly 75 minutes away by road.
Our tip
December through March is the ski season, the village at full capacity around the Sellaronda lifts, with the men's World Cup giant slalom on the Gran Risa each December at La Villa next door. June through September is the summer Dolomite season, cool even in July at 1,568 metres, with hiking, via ferrata and gravel cycling across the Pralongià plateau and the Puez-Odle park. April and May are quiet shoulder months, snow gone from the village but lifts mostly closed and hotels shut between seasons.
Toblach
Why visit Toblach
Dobbiaco sits at 1,256 metres in the upper Val Pusteria, on the Austrian border, its written record going back to 827. The old settlement, Alt-Toblach, grew around the parish church, while the newer part of town took shape lower down around the railway station built alongside the hotel that opened in 1877, which turned Dobbiaco into one of the first alpine resorts in the Habsburg empire.
Further out in the woods at Alt-Schluderbach stands the cabin where a composer once retreated each summer to write, apart from the hotel guests and the trains. South of the settlement the land opens into the Fanes-Sennes-Braies Nature Park, holding an alpine lake with a trail for walkers, and the old railbed continues in that direction as a route over Cimabanche pass toward Cortina d'Ampezzo.
Beyond all of it, reached by way of Val di Landro and Misurina, rise the three spires that anchor the eastern Dolomites. The Gustav Mahler Musikwochen festival fills the town each July and August with concerts named for the man who once needed its quiet.
Taken together, the town reads as three layers set one behind the other: a medieval nucleus, a Habsburg-era resort built on the railway, and beyond both, the mountains and woods that drew a composer to withdraw and now draw everyone else to pass through.
The village sits at 1256 metres.
What to see in Toblach
- Chiesa di San Giovanni Battista. Rebuilt 1764-1774 over the remains of a ninth-century Benedictine chapel, standing at the centre of the historic settlement of Alt-Toblach, the nucleus the rest of the town grew around.
- Grand Hotel Toblach. Built 1877-1878 beside the new railway station. The building now holds the nature park visitor centre and the Mahler Auditorium, where the composer's name is heard again each summer.
- Lago di Dobbiaco/Toblacher See. Alpine lake south of town in the Fanes-Sennes-Braies Nature Park, with a circular educational trail and observation platforms for waterfowl.
How to get to Toblach
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Bolzano is roughly 93 minutes away by road.
Our tip
June through September is the summer Dolomite season, with cool evenings, the Mahler Musikwochen in July and August at the Grand Hotel auditorium, and the Tre Cime and Dobbiaco-Cortina cycle path at their busiest. December through March is the ski and Nordic season: the Dobbiaco-Cortina cross-country track replaces the cycle path, and the Tre Cime ski circuit runs from nearby Plan de Corones. April and May are quiet shoulder months, snow gone but many lifts and hotels closed.
Innichen
Why visit Innichen
San Candido, Innichen in German, sits at 1,175 metres in the Alta Pusteria valley near the Austrian border, twenty-six kilometres west of Lienz and the headwaters of the Drava river. The town was founded as a Benedictine monastery in 769 by Duke Tassilo III of Bavaria, charged with the Christianisation of the Slavic populations of the eastern Alps.
The monastery was turned into a college of canons in 1143, which is the founding date of the collegiate church that still stands at the centre of the town today. The town is bilingual, German first and Italian second; the Italian name San Candido was applied after 1918 by the Tolomei programme that renamed every place in South Tyrol.
The old town, laid out along the Pusteria road with its squares and burgher houses, sits at the foot of the slope that rises directly into the Monte Baranci ski area, so the built centre and the mountain terrain meet with almost no transition. To the south the Drei Zinnen, the Tre Cime di Lavaredo, mark the most photographed silhouette in the Dolomites, with Innichen serving as the road, rail and trailhead base for reaching them through Sesto and Auronzo.
East, the valley opens toward the Drava river and Austria, followed for its whole length by the cycle path to Lienz. The town works because of this arrangement: a monastic and Romanesque core, a wall of Dolomite peaks to the south, and open riverine access to Austria to the east, three directions of identity meeting at a single, small, bilingual place.
The village sits at 1175 metres.
What to see in Innichen
- Stiftskirche / Collegiata di San Candido. Extended around 1280 with a Creation cupola that is the largest surviving fresco of its kind, the interior carrying the weight of the building's Romanesque reputation in stone and paint.
- Stiftsmuseum. Chapter museum next to the church, holding thirteenth-century sculpture, manuscripts and liturgical objects that trace the life of the foundation across its centuries as monastery and college.
- Historic centre. Pedestrianised core around the church, with Tyrolean burgher houses, painted facades and the Pflegplatz and Atoplatz squares laid out along the old Pusteria road.
How to get to Innichen
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Bolzano is roughly 101 minutes away by road.
Our tip
Innichen runs on a two-peak alpine calendar. June through September is the hiking and cycling season, with the Tre Cime trails open, the rifugi in the Sesto Dolomites fully staffed and the Drava cycle path busy with families heading to Lienz. July and August are the warmest weeks, comfortable at 1,175 metres while the valley floors farther south overheat. Platzl Fest / Festa in piazza at the Senfter's Platzl falls in August.
St. Ulrich
Why visit St. Ulrich
The valley climbs east from the Eisack toward the Sella and the Sassolungo, and the town sits at its middle point. Almost all residents speak Ladin at home, and signage runs trilingual in Ladin, German and Italian.
Three cable cars leave the village in three directions: one to the northwest onto a plateau, one north onto a long ridge below the Odle, and one south onto a high meadow that forms the valley's southern edge. The museum inside the Cësa di Ladins holds the record of the valley's carving tradition alongside fossils from the surrounding peaks and material on Luis Trenker, the mountaineer-actor-director who came from here.
The layout, a village hemmed by three lifts and named for the saint of its own parish church, reads as a place organized entirely around the ground it sits on: craft below, peaks and plateaus in every direction above.
The village sits at 1236 metres.
What to see in St. Ulrich
- Parish church (St. Ulrich/San Udalrico). Neoclassical church with Baroque elements, rebuilt in the late 18th century, dedicated to the Epiphany and to St. Ulrich, the patron saint who gives the town its German name.
- Museum Gherdëina. Local-heritage museum inside the Cësa di Ladins documenting four centuries of woodcarving, wooden toys, sacred sculpture, Dolomite fossils and the Trenker family archive.
- Seceda. Long limestone ridge reached by cable car from the village, with the Odle/Geisler peaks rising sharply to the north and high meadows dropping toward the valley.
How to get to St. Ulrich
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Bolzano is roughly 43 minutes away by road.
Our tip
June through September is the green Dolomite season: the Alpe di Siusi opens fully, the Seceda ridge is walkable from the cable car, and the rifugi of the Odle and Sassolungo run their full summer programmes. December through March is the ski half of the year, with the Sellaronda circuit accessed directly from Ortisei. April, May and November are the closure months.
Sterzing
Why visit Sterzing
Vipiteno sits at 948 metres in the upper Wipptal, twelve kilometres south of the Brenner Pass and the Austrian border, with the Eisack river running through the medieval town and the Stubai Alps rising on three sides. The German-speaking population calls it Sterzing and outnumbers the Italian speakers by roughly three to one.
The town grew rich in the late fifteenth century from silver and lead mined in the Schneeberg deposits of the Ridnaun and Pflersch valleys to the west, and from its position on the Brenner trade route. The mines belonged to the Fuggers of Augsburg, the banking family who financed Habsburg emperors; Vipiteno is still sometimes called Fuggerstadt.
The Zwölferturm, a forty-six metre tower built in 1472, stands at the centre of Piazza Città and divides the Altstadt from the Neustadt, the two halves of the medieval town. Both halves are lined with painted facades, oriel windows and stepped gables built when the silver flowed.
The village sits at 948 metres.
What to see in Sterzing
- Zwölferturm. Forty-six metre tower built in 1472 at the centre of Piazza Città, dividing the Altstadt from the Neustadt and serving as the town's symbol.
- Altstadt and Neustadt. Two halves of the medieval town on either side of the Zwölferturm, lined with painted facades, oriel windows and stepped gables from the silver-mining century.
- Schneeberg mining museum. Provincial mining museum in the Ridnaun valley west of Vipiteno, on the site of the Fugger-era silver and lead workings that funded the town's wealth.
How to get to Sterzing
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Bolzano is roughly 68 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May through October is the open season, with the Altstadt streets free of snow, hiking running from the town floor up into the Stubai Alps and the Brenner road clear. June and September are the most comfortable months, mid-twenties by day, cool nights at 948 metres. July and August are the busiest, with German and Austrian visitors stopping on the way south and the Vipiteno yoghurt festival drawing crowds in early July.
Kastelruth
Why visit Kastelruth
Castelrotto, in German Kastelruth and in Ladin Ciastel, sits at 1,060 metres on a shelf below the Sciliar, twenty kilometres northeast of Bolzano. The commune's territory rises from 720 metres at San Vigilio to over 2,400 metres on the Sciliar massif, with the Alpe di Siusi reached from within that territory.
The name first appears in the tenth century and goes back to the Castellum Ruptum, a destroyed castle on the Calvary hill above the village, so the hill above the square and the name on the map are the same story told twice. Of around 6,500 residents, 82 per cent speak German as their first language, 15 per cent Ladin and 3 per cent Italian.
That balance, and the position on a shelf between the valley floor and the high meadow above it, is what gives the village its Tyrolean character rather than an Italian one: a settlement whose centre, church tower, and surrounding pasture all sit within sight of each other, with the mountain doing most of the work of orientation.
The village sits at 1060 metres.
What to see in Kastelruth
- Campanile della Parrocchiale. Standing apart from the parish church of Saints Peter and Paul, the tower is visible from the surrounding pastures long before the village itself comes into view.
- Chiesa Parrocchiale dei Santi Pietro e Paolo. Baroque interior beside the detached tower, the principal religious building of the commune since the medieval period.
- Alpe di Siusi/Seiser Alm. Reached by cable car from Siusi, the meadow opens out with the Sciliar and Sassolungo on either side, a scale that is hard to read from photographs alone.
How to get to Kastelruth
There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Bolzano is roughly 44 minutes away by road.
Our tip
June through September is the high-meadow season on the Alpe di Siusi, with the Seiser Alm pastures green, the chairlifts running and hiking and biking routes open from the village to the Sciliar. December through March is the ski season: the Seiser Alm has fifty-six kilometres of slopes, mostly red and blue, and connects by the Saltria-Mont Sëuc gondola to the rest of the Dolomiti Superski. Late June brings the Oswald von Wolkenstein Riding Tournament, the historical equestrian event held in the meadows around the village.
Brunico
Why visit Brunico
Brunico, Bruneck in German, sits at 838 metres in the eastern Alto Adige, in the Val Pusteria. The name comes from the castle built above the settlement, and the town below grew up around it rather than the other way round.
First documented as Bruneke in 1256, it received weekly market rights and the privilege of high justice, and grew rich in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries on the Augsburg-Venice trade that ran across the valley, the same trade that filled the Stadtgasse with merchant houses. The town has three distinct layers that sit close together but answer different purposes: the castle above holding the seat of the former prince-bishops, the walled Stadtgasse below as the commercial spine between the four gates, and Teodone at the edge of town, where the Mair am Hof Residence and its rebuilt farmhouses preserve a rural way of life that the town centre does not.
The mountain above the valley, reached from the town, adds a fourth register entirely, modern and built for a single striking structure rather than for defence or trade. Together these layers show a town shaped by three different economies in three different eras: episcopal power, alpine commerce, and now winter tourism, each leaving its own mark rather than replacing what came before.
The village sits at 838 metres.
What to see in Brunico
- Castello di Brunico. The castle sits above the town as the former summer residence of the Brixen bishops. The museum inside occupies rooms that still read as a bishop's seat rather than a purpose-built gallery.
- Stadtgasse. Pedestrian street between the four gates, its townhouses carrying bay windows and ornate shop signs at close range, the kind of detail that only shows up on foot.
- Museo Etnografico Sudtirolese. South Tyrolean Folklore Museum in the Mair am Hof Residence at Teodone, built 1690-1700, with twenty-four rebuilt farmhouses from across the province in its open-air section.
How to get to Brunico
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Bolzano is roughly 69 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May through October brings the warm months in the Pustertal, with the Stadtgasse and the castle terrace usable from early afternoon and Plan de Corones open for hiking and biking from late June. June and July are the cool alpine months, with long evenings in the historic centre and the cable cars running up from the south side of town. September and October bring the autumn colours and the start of Törggelen, the South Tyrolean chestnut-and-new-wine season. Festa dello Speck Alto Adige - Speckfest falls in September.
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