Explorer Bolzano

The Franciscan Friary in central Bolzano was founded in the 13th century and rebuilt after a fire in 1291; its Gothic church was consecrated in 1348 and rebuilt after a bomb hit it in 1944. The choir holds a carved late-Gothic Nativity altarpiece made by Hans Klocker in 1500, and the cloister is decorated with frescoes.

The South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano opened in 1998 to house Ötzi, the Iceman, the natural mummy of a man who died in the Alps around 3300 BC and was found in a glacier in 1991. The body is kept in a cooled chamber and shown with his clothing, copper axe, bow and quiver, alongside finds from South Tyrol's early history.

Runkelstein Castle stands on a rocky spur above the Talfer valley just north of Bolzano. Built from 1237, it was bought in 1385 by the merchant brothers Niklaus and Franz Vintler, who had it enlarged and painted around 1400 with secular frescoes of courtly life, knights and literary tales, which visitors see in its rooms today.

Sigmundskron Castle is a hilltop fortress on the south-western edge of Bolzano, first recorded in 945 as Formicaria. Duke Sigismund of Tyrol bought it around 1473, renamed it and rebuilt it to resist firearms. Since 2006 its ruins have housed the Messner Mountain Museum Firmian, Reinhold Messner's museum on people and mountains.