Trentino Alto Adige

Welcome to what is, perhaps, the less Italian of the national regions, Trentino Alto Adige. Laid out along the country's north-eastern border with Austria, it is a breath taking land of mountain ridges and snowy peaks, alpine meadows and glittering waterfalls, popular ski resorts and intact medieval towns. During the cold winter months, skiing is absolutely unparalleled in Trentino Alto Adige. Spring and fall offer enchanting hikes along an extensive network of well-organized and marked trails, with several stops in remote mountain hamlets where German is the most common language and, quiet hard to say, dumplings, the so-called Gnocchi, are more common than spaghetti. Even during the summer, Trentino Alto Adige is a much sought travelling destination due to its perfect place for walks and hikes amid pure nature, like the paths of the Stelvio National Park, among the woods of Fassa Valley or high altitude lakes. Trekking lovers can explore the highest peaks following the beautiful tracts of Via Alpina, provided with routes and well-equipped huts. In the heart of the Alps, we can find a special historical and natural path, the Sentiero della pace (Path of peace), in memory of World War I. Lake Garda, encircled by Mediterranean vegetation, is a perfect place for many different activities: mountain biking, sailing, windsurfing, scuba-diving and hiking on the surrounding mountains.

Italians and other travellers have long known this to be one of the best vacation spots, combining glorious nature, warm hospitality, and comfortable accommodations at extremely affordable prices, with a few memorable exceptions.

Due to its divided language culture, visiting the region, the traveller will notice that many of the localities have two names, such as the Italian and the German ones. Despite its calm and orderly appearance, Trentino is a deeply divided region, an area which has long struggled to find a homogenous identity for itself. Napoleon was a key player in the region’s cultural story, placing it, after having conquered the region, under the domination of the Austrian Habsburgs, who ruled it until it was returned to Italy at the end of World War I. A large and very vocal segment of the local population never accepted that political arrangement, and in 1939, Mussolini gave them the chance to either accept Italian citizenship and remain or assume German citizenship and emigrate north. As a result, the great majority chose the latter option, leaving this largely rural territory even more under populated than before. Starting from 1948, the new Italian legislature made Trentino Alto Adige an autonomous region.

While this may sound like a reasonable solution, it has actually proved to be little more than another political expedient which has led, in a way, to further estrangement from Italy and to a sort of internal division. Even the most casual visitor will have little trouble noticing that Trentino, the southern part of the region circles around the beautiful city of Trento, is far more Italian than Alto Adige, which is also known as Süd-Tyrol. In addition, sprinkled throughout the mountain valleys of both areas are about 80,000 residents who, clinging to yet another ethnic tradition, speak an ancient language known as Ladin. This utterly incomprehensible tongue, a combination of Celtic dialects and Latin, resulted from the encounter of northern colonists and Roman legions in the first century BC.

The many food-and-wine itineraries of this region lead to the vineyards of famous black pinot wine, to the area where Spumante sparkling wine and white wines are produced, as well as other areas, to discover local specialties like the delicious chestnuts around Lake Varna.