Every year at the beginning of the summer, it was always custom to take a summer holiday. This custom was born in 1576 around the time of the plague.

The traditional summer holiday period spread for 72 days. This is how it is commentated in the annual lists: Exactly on 29th June, the day of St. Peter and St. Paul, the people pack household items, sufficient clothing in boxes and chests; children were packed into wicker baskets and sat, together with 'Mylady' in the ladies' saddle on the horse. The second residence, the Ritten summer resort, was mostly appreciated by the children of lords. Due to their work, the men usually stayed only for a few days and visited their families only at the week-ends. A regular summer holiday as we know it today, was not known then.

In the 'Eight Bozen Rules' – the etiquette of every 'correct' citizen of Bozen – Karl Theodor Hoeniger writes: 'Rule number 3 speaks about a summer holiday house at the Ritten mountain…'
Also the aristocracy and the upper class from the Vienna region with its former crown estate citizens did not mind the long journey. They literally brought their house and home to the train station and travelled with the Southern Railways across the Semmering mountain, Lienz and the cool Puster Valley to Bozen, from where they journeyed up the Ritten mountain.

As quickly and as punctually as the holidaymakers appear, so they disappear again - mostly at the beginning of September. The shutters are closed, the benches and tables carried back into the houses, the doors closed … and when the first leaves fall onto the streets, the people of the city have returned to the valley.