The Semi-Rural House in Don Bosco stands next to the Semi-Rural Park, the meeting place for picnics and outdoor concerts in summer
Image gallery: Bolzano Don Bosco
One of Bolzano's many cycle paths runs along the Isarco River and passes the Semi-Rural Park, called Parco delle Semirurali in Italian, the heart of the Don Bosco district, the most culturally diverse corner of Bolzano. Here the popular cultural evenings and open-air concerts take place in summer. Part of the park is a 300-seat amphitheatre and a small excavation site with the remains of the church and the medieval Maria in Augia Monastery. On the other side of the river, a little further east, is South Tyrol's largest shopping centre with cinema and restaurants, the Twenty.
Don Bosco stretches from the central Viale Druso road in the north to the Maria in Augia Church below, and from the Europa-Novacella district in the east to the border of Appiano in the west. There, where Firmiano Castle can be seen above the MeBo motorway, the orchards have given way to the new residential districts of Firmiano and Casanova. 100 years ago, the area consisted almost entirely of orchards, and the houses looked completely different: At the end of the 1930s, in order to push the immigration of workers from other Italian regions, hundreds of little houses with vegetable gardens, the Case Semirurali (literally: semi-rural houses), were built in this outlying area.
As Don Bosco grew, these houses were demolished to make way for housing estates. Today, Bolzano has been awarded the title "Climate Municipality Gold", and new residential complexes in Don Bosco - as well as in Rencio or Gries - are being built according to ClimateHouse standards with the help of a dedicated network of energy consultants, technicians, craftsmen and experts. One of the old semi-rural houses, however, has been preserved: It shows the development of the district and how it used to look inside these houses. A short walk from there you can find the memorial site of the Nazi transit camp in Bolzano from 1944-45, the Passage of Remembrance.
