For foodies
Where to eat well in Trentino-South Tyrol
20 towns
Towns holding at least one place a guide put its name to. The ones several guides agree on come first.
Brunico
Province: Bolzano · 838 m
The largest town of the Pustertal at 838 metres, built around the prince-bishop's castle and the Stadtgasse, with Plan de Corones rising above the valley.
Corvara in Badia
Province: Bolzano · 1,568 m
The Ladin centre of Alta Badia at 1,568 metres, at the foot of the Sassongher, on the four-pass Sellaronda ski circuit.
Bressanone
Province: Bolzano · 560 m
The oldest town in Tyrol, a prince-bishopric for eight centuries at the confluence of the Eisack and Rienz, below the Plose ridge.
Cavalese
Province: Trento · 1,000 m
The capital of the valley at 1,000 metres, seat of the Magnifica Comunità and its open-air parliament, the Banco della Reson.
Moena
Province: Trento · 1,184 m
The largest village in the valley, Ladin-speaking, dressed in Ottoman costume for three days every August.
Canazei
Province: Trento · 1,465 m
A Ladin village at 1,465 metres at the head of Val di Fassa, ringed by Marmolada, Sella and Sassolungo and the Sellaronda circuit.
Riva del Garda
Province: Trento · 73 m
The north tip of the lake at 73 metres, where the Trentino mountains close in on the water and a Habsburg port town stayed bilingual into the twentieth century.
Trento
Province: Trento · 194 m
The Alpine capital on the Adige at 194 metres, where the Council that reshaped the Catholic Church met in a castle still standing above the city.
Pinzolo
Province: Trento · 770 m
The Val Rendena base town at 770 metres, set between the Adamello-Presanella massif and the Dolomites to the east.
Brentonico
Province: Trento · 692 m
The Monte Baldo plateau town between Lake Garda and the Vallagarina, with chestnut groves, war trenches and a botanical garden.
Levico Terme
Province: Trento · 520 m
A Habsburg spa town in the Valsugana at 520 metres, built on arsenic-iron thermal waters.
Meran
Province: Bolzano · 324 m
A Habsburg spa city at 324 metres on the Passer river, palm-lined promenades below 3,000-metre peaks and the gardens where Empress Sissi spent her winters.
Kastelruth
Province: Bolzano · 1,060 m
South Tyrolean village on a shelf below the Sciliar, eighty-two-metre bell tower over the square, home of the Kastelruther Spatzen.
Glurns
Province: Bolzano · 907 m
A ringed sixteenth-century circuit of walls encloses a city of 937 inhabitants near the Swiss border.
Luserna
Province: Trento · 1,333 m
A Cimbrian island at 1,333 metres on the Alpe Cimbra plateau, the last village in Italy where the medieval Bavarian dialect is still spoken at home.
Ossana
Province: Trento · 1,003 m
A small borgo at the foot of a 25-metre stone keep, with Christmas nativity scenes filling its streets every December.
Rovereto
Province: Trento · 204 m
The Vallagarina city at 204 metres where a Venetian-Austrian castle holds the Italian war museum and a domed contemporary art museum holds Italy's largest collection of its kind in the Alps.
St. Ulrich
Province: Bolzano · 1,236 m
A Ladin wood-carving town at 1,236 metres, set between two high plateaus.
Sterzing
Province: Bolzano · 948 m
A bilingual mining town at 948 metres on the Brenner road, where a 46-metre tower built in 1472 still divides the old town from the new.
Toblach
Province: Bolzano · 1,256 m
The Val Pusteria gateway where Mahler wrote his last three symphonies in a cabin behind town.
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From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Biccari
Province: Foggia
A Subappennino Dauno borgo at 450 meters under Monte Cornacchia, the highest peak in Puglia at 1,151 meters, with a Byzantine tower at its core.
Sirolo
Province: Ancona
A clifftop borgo at 125 meters, above the Due Sorelle sea stacks of the Adriatic.
Penne
Province: Pescara
The brick city at 438 meters between the Tavo and Fino, ancient capital of the Vestini, rebuilt after Allied bombing and awarded the Silver Medal of Civic Merit.
Palazzolo Acreide
Province: Siracusa
An 8,000-resident hilltop town on the Iblei plateau at 670m, rebuilt entirely in late Baroque after the 1693 earthquake and founded over the Greek Akrai colony in 664 BC, with a Greek theatre and a cluster of rock carvings unlike anything else nearby.
Verucchio
Province: Rimini
A spur over the lower Marecchia valley, cradle of the Villanovan civilization and birthplace of the Malatesta lordship of Romagna.