Merano Culture

Merano is more mixed, more southern and less tidy than the rest of South Tyrol, and it rather likes that.

Two languages, close to even

The town is split almost evenly between German and Italian speakers, which is unusual in this province and makes for a looser, more mixed social texture than Bolzano or the valleys.

The cure tradition

The idea of coming here to get better is two centuries old and has not gone away: the modern thermal baths, the grape cure in autumn, the promenades designed for slow walking by people with weak lungs. Much of the town is still shaped for convalescence.

The grape cure

In autumn the local custom is to eat large quantities of Schiava grapes as a treatment. It is taken half seriously and celebrated with a festival that has run since 1886.

Wine and food

The Merano hills grow Schiava and Pinot Bianco; the town's wine festival each November is among the most respected in Italy, and the cooking is South Tyrolean with more Italian influence than usual.

Kafka's letters

Franz Kafka spent three months here in 1920, convalescing in a guesthouse above the town, and wrote a large part of the letters to Milena Jesenská from it. It is the kind of thing that happened in a town full of people sent here to breathe.

Pound at Brunnenburg

Ezra Pound spent much of his last decade at a castle above the town with his daughter, and the connection has produced a small literary presence here.