The Gardens of Trauttmansdorff Castle
Take at least half a day if you have the Gardens of Trauttmansdorff Castle on your list! There are over 80 different garden worlds to marvel at, plus there are also 2 viewing platforms, a Caribbean palm beach and a large aviary. In the evenings on mild summer evenings, concerts by internationally known musicians take place around the lake below the castle.
The botanical gardens with their four thematic gardens (forest gardens, sun gardens, water and terrace gardens as well as the themed gardens on the landscapes of South Tyrol) with 80 different garden landscapes extend over a total area of 12 hectares.
Here you can see over 200,000 tulips in bloom in spring. They open the gardening season on April 1st. Then there are countless other botanical beauties to discover until the beginning of November. They are Merano’s crowd-pullers par excellence: the Gardens of Trauttmansdorff Castle, which nestle against the sun-drenched mountain slope of Labers.
To really see everything, you should take a whole day, that’s how big the facility is and how diverse the different garden worlds are. Tip: You can also visit the gardens outside of the classic visiting hours, when there is often a very large crowd – the gardens also offer numerous morning and evening events.
In the center of the Gardens of Trauttmansdorff Castle there is located the castle itself, which houses the Touriseum as well as a restaurant. Its old and venerable rooms, in which Emperor Franz Josef and his wife, Empress Sissi resided, now serve as the premises for the Museum of Tourism. As its name suggests, the Touriseum offers a permanent exhibition on tourism in South Tyrol.
Below the castle, surrounded by palm trees, is the large water lily pond with the pavilion on the bank. On warm summer evenings, evening concerts are held there, the garden nights, in which numerous internationally recognized artists have performed.