Giardini di Castel Trauttmansdorff

The Gardens of Trauttmansdorff Castle bring botanical landscapes from around the world to the slopes above Merano. Their twelve hectares form a natural amphitheatre around a castle with medieval origins and a later imperial connection.

Why it matters

The planting explores relationships between vegetation, climate, landscape and human cultivation. The gardens combine this botanical theme with the history of a residence associated with Merano's development as a resort.

What to notice

Four garden worlds distinguish forests from the Americas and Asia, Mediterranean planting, water and terraced gardens, and the natural and cultivated landscapes of South Tyrol. The changing terrain rises through roughly one hundred metres, setting the varied planting against the surrounding mountains.

Context and history

Count Josef von Trauttmansdorff acquired and remodelled the neglected castle in 1846, giving it a neo-Gothic appearance. Empress Elisabeth stayed here in the winter of 1870–71 and returned in 1889. The botanical gardens opened in 2001; the restored castle became home to the South Tyrol Museum of Tourism in 2003.