Day 1 – Walking Brixen’s Old Town

Oct 8, 2022

Today’s Adventure

On Saturday Cindy and I finished our week in Ortisei and moved down the valley to Brixen, an ancient town in the Val Isarco. There are records of settlement dating back as far as 901 AD, so there’s a lot of history to be explored here!

This wasn’t a big move geographically – just an hour by bus – but it was a big change in other ways. With a population of around 20,000, Brixen is four times the size of Ortisei but it seems even bigger than that. That may be because the local economy is driven by something other than tourism and therefore many of the people that you see on the sidewalks or in the stores actually live and work in the area.

Brixen is located mid-way between Bolzano to the south and Brenner Pass (the Austrian border) to the north, about 25 miles from each. This location means that it offers excellent regional rail and bus access that we’ll be taking advantage of over the next two weeks as we continue our adventures here in Südtirol.

Our apartment was just across the street from the intersection of the Eisack and Rienz Rivers on the Via Plose. After checking into the apartment and dropping our bags we went out to explore our new surroundings. We started by crossing the Widmannbrücke and continuing north along the Eisack River before turning left into the Old Town district at the Hotel Golden Adler. From there we passed under the historic White Tower, also known as the Torre Bianca in Italian or Weißer Turm in German, which is one of the medieval gates into the Old Town. This lead us directly to the Piazza del Duomo, the main square in front of the Cathedral of Brixen. This cathedral is a baroque masterpiece that we would visit several times during our stay. Other landmarks on this square include the City Hall and St. Michael’s Cathedral.

We wandered around the square looking at the various kiosks set up for the Saturday market, many of them specializing in local products, before strolling the Via Portici Maggiori. All of the high end shops on this historic street are recessed back into the arcades formed by deep porticos along each side. At this point we left the Old Town and crossed back over the Eisack River near our apartment. Happily this was only a couple of blocks away from a EuroSpar grocery store where we shopped for the groceries and supplies that we’d need for our two week stay in Brixen.

The weather was lovely and we were thrilled to see a lot of things in person that we were only able to see online during the many months of planning for our long-awaited return to the Dolomites.

To return to the main page for Brixen click here.

To return to the main page for the entire trip click here.