The Ritten – cradle of summer holidays

Guests, Bozen citizens, as well as the local residents – all love it: the Ritten mountain just outside the provincial capital. A popular holiday destination for hikers, all the family and individuals. Summer holiday tradition par excellence and a number of natural beauty spots await the friends of this climatically wonderful town, which inspires you and offers inspiration not only to artists and philosophers.

» Nostalgic excursion to the Ritten mountain

Personalities on the Ritten

The Ritten mountain was and is for artists a platform and showroom for feelings and motifs. Up there, Franz Kafka wrote his 'Milena', Sigmund Freud was inspired by the landscape and its people to write 'Totem and Tabu', Friderike Zweig and Otto Flake manifested their impressions and feelings about the Ritten mountain in their literary work.

» Freud, Mayr & Hoffensthal

The Ritten Earth pyramids

The famous earth pyramids are among the most celebrated natural features on the Ritten. You'll find several earth pyramids, whereby those in the 'Katzenbachtal' below Oberbozen and particularly in the 'Finsterbachtal', between Lengmoos and Mittelberg, which are most well-known. Further one finds still earth pyramids in the proximity of Unterinn.

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100 Years of the Ritten Railway

On 13th August 1907, the first train made its way up to the high plateau. This is reason enough to celebrate for an entire year under the theme of the Ritten railway. The events '100 Years of the Ritten Railway' invites you between May and October 2007 to musical and culinary night drives, theatre tours, railway hiking trips, family Sundays, a train festival and a 'favourite drive'. The official event takes place on 13th August.

» 100 Years of the Ritten Railway

Holidays on the Mendel Mountain

Just like they did in times gone by, most of the inhabitants of the Etsch Valley go to the surrounding higher regions of their towns, as soon as the hot summer months arrive. Many families from Kaltern go with their families to the Mendel mountain. Already during the 17th Century, the first holidaymakers went to the Mendel. At the end of the 18th Century, the Mendel mountain became the destination of the social elite of Europe. In 1903, the Mendel cable railway, the steepest and longest cable railway in Europe, was put into operation. Today, it still covers a difference in altitude of 850 metres from St. Anton/Kaltern to the Mendel Pass in only 12 minutes.