The cradle of the County of Tyrol
Above Merano, on a spur among vineyards and orchards, near the village of Tirolo (Dorf Tirol), stands a castle that gave its name to an entire region: Castel Tirolo, Schloss Tirol. Built at the end of the eleventh and in the twelfth century by the counts of Venosta, who took the name of counts of Tyrol, it was the seat of a dynasty that over the following centuries extended its power over the valleys of the Adige, the Inn and the Isarco, creating the County of Tyrol, a state that straddled the Alps. In 1363, the last countess, Margarete, known as "Maultasch", handed the county over to the Habsburgs, who held it until 1918, when South Tyrol passed to Italy.
The castle, which can be reached on foot in about twenty minutes from the village of Tirolo along a panoramic path and through a tunnel dug in the rock, preserves some extraordinary elements of Romanesque art: the two portals of the great hall and the chapel, carved in white marble in the twelfth century with fantastic creatures, monsters, dragons, sirens and scenes of the struggle between good and evil, and the double-storey chapel, with frescoes of the fourteenth century and a large Crucifixion group. Today the castle houses the South Tyrol Museum of Culture and Provincial History, which tells the story of the region from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, including the complex events of the annexation to Italy and the "option" of 1939. From the castle's terraces, the view sweeps over the Adige valley and Merano.
Tip: the walk from Tirolo to the castle is easy and beautiful; nearby, the Brunnenburg castle houses an agricultural museum.
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