I can't put my finger on Bolzano. The place is strange. That is the first impression I got back in 1982, when the bus from Verona airport taking us on a school skiing trip in Val Senales skirted the edge of Bolzano before joining the SS38 to head up to Merano. I recall seeing forbidding residential tower blocks and an unattractive urban sprawl off to one side, hemmed into the bottom of the valley between mountains. These days it still hasn't really changed but a lot of the modern architecture is a bit brighter, although I fear that might be an appearance that will be short-lived. The place reminds me a bit of industrial parts of Austria that tried to reinvent themselves, successfully mostly. But for me, Merano is undoubtedly the prettier of the two largest settlements in the Alto Adige/Südtirol region. Despite a predominance of the German language, Italian seems to be what everyone falls naturally back on.


The streets of the old town in central Bolzano


The arcades at the sides of the street protect you from rain and other elements


The youth hostel at Bolzano, near the station

The new Jugendherberge (youth hostel) near the train station gets top marks from me. Sure, if you have a front room looking out onto the train and local bus station it can get a bit noisy. And the reception is a bit nondescript to say the least. But I slept much better there than I did at the Crowne Plaza Linate and I paid only €31.85 which included an excellent breakfast and the city tax. For food I ended up in Hopfen & Co, which had wonderful house brewed beers and really good food. Later on I put my nose into Batzenhäusl with the intention of trying one of their many microbrews, but I got the same snotty unfriendly reception that I had got earlier the same evening, so don't go there. Unless you like that sort of greeting and service. Honestly, I just don't understand how these places still get customers.


Some interesting and odd window dressings in the arcades


These small windows were on the pillars under the arcades and were oddly eye catching!


Inside Hopfen & Co, with its selection of house brewed beers


This is what I ordered in the Hopfen & Co brewpub

The best experience was the following day, on the way to the little airport with a local bus just before a public transport strike was due to begin. No bus actually goes to the airport, so you have to use the suburban lines and walk a bit (10 minutes) to reach the terminal building. When I got off the bus I found a little local bar, Café Columbus, with mostly older people drinking their apéritif of wine at 10h30 in the morning. Well, after a final excellent cappuccino and a chocolate brioche, I joined them! The cappuccino, the brioche and two glasses of wine cost me €4.40. Now beat that if you can!


A local watering hole, Café Columbus, on the way to Bolzano airport


I spent a pleasant half hour in this bar (Café Columbus) near the airport with the locals, before continuing to the airport to get my flight