I’d never heard of Bolzano (or Bozen as it is also known) before one of my German friends moved there for university. “You must come and visit; trust me, you’ve never seen anything like it”, he convinced me. I was sceptical. My previous encounter with Italy did not leave me eager to return. Based in Florence for a short study tour, I’d found myself overwhelmed with the colourful chaos of life, to which the Italians are so easily indifferent. That being said, I thought Bolzano would surely be more exciting to visit than the stiff and sleepy Bavarian town in which my friend and I had met 10 years ago while on my high school exchange. That exchange at the time solidified my perceptions of Germans as highly ordered and efficient people. So I took the chance, and upon arrival I quickly understood that my friend was right—I had never experienced anything like Bolzano. Formerly part of a territory of the Austro-Hungarian empire, today Bolzano in the province of South Tyrol is a perfect representation of the melting national borders within Europe. Bolzano lies in the northern most part of Italy bordering Austria, and acts as the mid-point in the cultural gradient from Northern to Southern Europe. The clashing influences are evident in everything from architecture to gastronomy. The medieval townhouses echo those in cities like Vienna and Salzburg, whereas the market squares, gelato and Aperitivo culture are distinctly Italian. Thanks to the Germanic influence the town is organised and structured, yet the atmosphere is characteristically Italian, relaxed and laid-back. The mix seemed a strange one at first. At times, I even became confused by the seamless integration of these two starkly different cultures. After finishing a couple of rounds of aperol spritz and walking through Piazza Domenicani, a portly woman was serving traditional German Bockwurst sausages from her mobile trolley. If we weren’t in Bolzano, I’d had thought I was seeing things after having one spritz too many. It is not only the food, architecture and culture in Bolzano that is mixed, but sometimes even the language too. While both Italian and German are official languages, in many locations conglomerate names made me giggle, like Piazza Walther Von Der Vogelweide, simply because the jarring combination seems so bizarre. Everything else is signposted in Italian and German, and I picked up a lot of new vocabulary simply from the immersion between the two. I warmed quickly to picturesque Bolzano and its romantic setting, and I was not the only one. Allegedly, even Casanova saw it fit to live here at Piazza Erbe in 1756, after his escape from a Venetian prison. Countless clifftop castles like Castel Roncolo (also known as Schloss Runkelstein) sit snug between wineries and the Italian Alpine Range the Dolomites, looking down below onto the junction of the Talfer and Eisack rivers. The Dolomites frame Bolzano and provide endless amusement for the adventurous. Skiing, hiking and horse riding are all on offer, as well traditional European mountain sports like Klettersteig or A via ferrata – quite literally, ‘climbing track’ in German or ‘iron path’ in Italian. One of the region’s most famous celebrities was in fact discovered on a hiking expedition – Ötzi, a glacier mummy from the Copper Age preserved perfectly in the ice. The South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano wonderfully documents the anthropology of the region, and teaches about Ötzi’s time in the Neolitic period, predating the Egyptian pyramids and Stonehenge. Watching the Dolomites turn red at sundown (known as Alpenglühn – the Alpine glow), I could see why Bolzano consistently tops the ranks for quality of life in Italy. Climate, geography, civic-engagement and an excellent trilingual student body at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, all makes for a very happy people. Bolzano takes its influences from Germanic and Italian cultures to create something entirely new by combining the best of both. I still sometimes find the Germans a little stiff, and the Italians too chaotic, but I found the sweet spot between these two very different cultures colliding beautifully in Bolzano.