Pons Drusi Museum

The St. Elisabeth Foundation runs, among other things, the Grieserhof retirement home in Bolzano with 60 residential and care places. When the new retirement home was supposed to be built here in the Via Cologna road, in the district of Gries-San Quirino, some spectacular finds came to light. Amphoras and remains of underfloor heating are among them, as well as entire parts of buildings.

A richly frescoed building with a portico and a massive substructure, once decorated with columns and covered with marble slabs, were dated to the 1st century AD. The substructure once belonged to a Roman temple or monument. Paintings with different patterns on the walls of the buildings and a water basin in the courtyard also came to light. The buildings belong to the Roman settlement of "Pons Drusi", which at that time was situated at the junction between the Via Claudia Augusta and the Roman road through the Valle Isarco. The name itself goes back to Nero Claudius Drusus, the stepson of Emperor Augustus. It is said that he once conquered the area around the Bolzano basin in a campaign, thereby laying the foundation stone for the settlement.

Today the name of the Druso Bridge, the bridge over the Talvera river that leads to the town centre and the railway station (Ponte Druso, in Italian), still bears witness to this Roman past. It is located approx. 2 km southeast from the Pons Drusi Museum. The small museum can be visited by appointment. And how to reach it? Parking spaces are available at the Grieserhof retirement home and the innerurban bus lines no. 1 and 10A stop at the nearby Piazza Gries (300 m away).