Bolzano lives with two languages and does so with a certain comfortable pride. It lies in a wide valley at the meeting of three rivers in South Tyrol, surrounded by steep slopes of vines and apples, with the pink limestone peaks of the Dolomites rising to the east. Until 1919 it belonged to Austria, and German is still the first language of most people in the province, though Bolzano itself is mostly Italian-speaking. Signs are in both, the cooking mixes dumplings and strudel with pasta and espresso, and the city feels like a conversation between two cultures.
The most famous resident is the oldest. Ötzi, the man in the ice, is a natural mummy about five thousand three hundred years old, found in 1991 by hikers in the glacier on the Italian-Austrian border. He lies in a cold, dim chamber in the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology, together with his clothing, copper axe and bow, and the museum does a marvellous job of explaining how he lived, and probably died, from an arrow wound. In the old town, arcaded streets and Gothic churches surround Walther Square, named after the medieval poet Walther von der Vogelweide.
For riders, Bolzano is the start of the Great Dolomites Road, which runs about a hundred and ten kilometres east to Cortina d'Ampezzo. The route climbs first through the Val d'Ega past Lake Carezza, in front of the Latemar peaks, crosses the Karer Pass at about 1,750 metres, and continues to the Pordoi Pass, above 2,200 metres, and the Falzarego Pass, above 2,100. The road is smooth and engineered with a series of hairpins that make it popular with riders. At sunrise and sunset the rock faces glow with a deep pink called enrosadira, a sight that stays in memory for a long time. Summer weekends bring heavy traffic, so aim for weekdays and early starts.
Fuel and repair shops are all easy to find, and the city has an excellent range of restaurants. Try speck, the smoked ham, and canederli dumplings, and cool down with a glass of local white wine. Summers in the valley are hot, but the mountains are fresh, and snow can close the highest passes from late autumn to spring.