Siusi

Siusi sits at 1,004 metres on the slopes of the Sciliar, the shapely massif that guards the plateau of the Alpe di Siusi, Europe’s largest high alpine pasture. A frazione of Castelrotto, it layers a pilgrimage church, the castle ruins of the minstrel-knight Oswald von Wolkenstein and a working farm museum beneath one of the Alps’ great panoramas.

Why visit

Siusi is the quietest of the great Alpine bases: a village of scattered houses and orchard lanes whose gondola, running since 2002, lifts visitors directly onto the Alpe di Siusi, the vast high pasture above the valley. From the village you can be walking the plateau’s wide trails within minutes, yet the lanes themselves hold enough history to fill unhurried mornings.

Three threads run through the place. The first is pilgrimage: the church of Maria Hilf, the village’s oldest, dates from the seventeenth century and still anchors the centre, later joined by the larger Holy Cross church on the square named for the valley’s most famous son. The second is the medieval world of castles — the ruins of Hauenstein on the forested slopes, once the residence of the knight, composer and poet Oswald von Wolkenstein, and the crag-top Salegg on the plateau above. The third is the mountain: the Sciliar massif overhead, the pasture beyond it, and the farming culture that the Tschötscherhof museum preserves.

Character and history

The village grew on the sunny slopes where the Schlern (Sciliar in Italian) drops towards the Eisak valley, and its fields have been worked since long before tourism: the prehistoric and Iron Age site of Rungger Egg on the nearby heights testifies to settlement reaching back thousands of years. As a frazione of Castelrotto, Siusi shares the municipality’s Ladin and German country culture while keeping its own parish life and village centre of cafés, guesthouses and shops.

The castle ruins above the village connect it to one of the great figures of the German Middle Ages. Hauenstein, on the forested slopes at the foot of the Sciliar, belonged in the late Middle Ages to Oswald von Wolkenstein, the South Tyrolean knight and litterateur whose songs made him the leading lyric voice of his generation; Salegg, higher up on the plateau edge, completes the chain of fortifications that watched these slopes. Later centuries turned the village towards devotion and agriculture — the Maria Hilf pilgrimage church embodies the former, and the preserved farmstead of the Tschötscherhof the latter.

What to see

In the village, begin with the Maria Hilf Church, the seventeenth-century baroque church at the heart of Siusi, then cross to the Holy Cross Church on Oswald-von-Wolkenstein square, the larger twentieth-century parish church. A woodland path leads up to the Saint Valentine Church, surrounded by meadows with the Sciliar behind it and keeping precious frescoes of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in which the painter set a Three Kings scene against the local landscape; it opens only on guided visits in the summer season.

Above the village stand the two castles: the Hauenstein Castle Ruins in the woods below the Sciliar, associated with Oswald von Wolkenstein, and the Salegg Castle Ruins on the plateau side. Down in the fields, the Farmer’s Museum (Tschötscherhof) preserves a sixteenth-century farm with the tools and interiors of Alpine country life.

How to experience

Let the mountain set one half of each day. Ride the gondola onto the Alpe di Siusi for morning walks among the grazing cattle, or take winter’s prepared pistes and cross-country tracks on the plateau; return to the village for lunch in the centre. Then spend the quieter hours on Siusi’s own history: the forest climb to Saint Valentine, the castle ruins, the farm museum.

Walkers can link the village sights on marked paths rather than roads, and the trail towards Saint Valentine doubles as the approach to the Sciliar’s southern paths. Autumn brings the cattle drives and golden larches; spring the orchard blossom along the lanes. For a slower day, the village square with a coffee and the Sciliar above is reason enough.

Practical planning

Siusi is reached from Bolzano by road and bus through the Eisak valley, turning up towards Castelrotto; buses continue into the village, and the Alpe di Siusi gondola station sits at its edge. Summer car restrictions on the plateau road make the lift the practical access, and drivers should park in the village garages. The Saint Valentine church opens only on guided tours, generally from late June to early September, so check schedules with the tourist office. Accommodation spans farms to family hotels; the busiest windows are the winter sports season and July-August on the plateau.

Nearby places

• Castelrotto — the municipality’s main village, famous for its folk choir and its large church tower.
• Alpe di Siusi — the great high pasture directly above the village, Europe’s largest.
• Bolzano — the provincial capital with its archaeological and civic museums, down in the valley.
• Dolomites — the UNESCO region of which the Sciliar group is a part.