South Tyrol: Two Castles and Terme Merano
We started our day by driving to Runkelstein Castle, near the city of Bolzano, Italy. This castle had been well reviewed online as being easy accessed, fairly small in scale, and also well preserved – three criteria that are really helpful when trying to introduce Medieval European history to kids. It was built around 1273 and inhabited until the mid-1800’s. There are beautiful frescoes that are still visible on many walls and visitors were sort of free to wander the halls and walkways.
We learned just enough about castles and their role in defending people and lands in the middle ages, to make the concept understandable to Ben. He was particularly interested in draw-bridges, arrow slots, towers, and “murder holes” – the places where castle defenders could pour boiling oil or drop rocks on attackers below.
This peek-a-boo shot of Ben is one of my favorites from this whole trip!
Norah accidentally recreates a Vermeer.
From here, we continued to Tautmannsdorf Castle, which is not so much a castle as it is a beautiful botanic garden. The house on the property was the summer manor of a wealthy family at the end of the 19th century. While beautiful, it didn’t hold the kids attention for very long (as they already knew what our last stop would be) and threatening skies hurried us along anyway.
From here, we moved on to our final destination of the day, Terme Merano. This is an enormous complex of more than 25 indoor and outdoor thermal pools that are heated by natural springs nearby. The kids loved hopping from pool to pool and particularly liked a current pool that carried you, lazy river style, in a small circle. Splashing around with the kids filled the rest of our afternoon. But, it’s worth noting that the complex also offers an adult spa, separated by gender and nude by requirement, where you can do the traditional hot/cold sauna and pool experience – something to consider another day…
Ben declared this his favorite day yet in Europe. Norah also said two thumbs way up.
