The backdrop of the town of Brunico with the castle hill is the Plan de Corones, the famous local mountain and popular skiing area
In the heart of the Val Pusteria lies its main town, Brunico, with the surrounding districts, which stretch from the golf course at the foot of Mt. Plan de Corones to the Aurino Floodplains in Stegona and on to San Giorgio and the fields of Villa Santa Caterina and Teodone. This is where the Lower Val Pusteria ends, and where the upper part begins with the famous lakes and the Three Peaks of Lavaredo. From a cultural and sporting point of view, the municipality is a destination for every season.
The most popular season is winter, when the Plan de Corones Skiing Area opens its gates and can now be reached from several sides. The local mountain has also become a cultural attraction in recent years with the opening of two museums on the 2,275 m high peak: the Museum of Mountain Photography and the MMM Corones, which complement each other. The cultural offer continues in the valley, where the Eck Museum of Art and the South Tyrolean Folklore Museum in Teodone have interesting stories to tell. Brunico Castle, which seems to watch over the town from its castle hill called Schlossberg, houses another one of Reinhold Messner's museums: the MMM Ripa, dedicated to the mountain peoples of the earth.
Long Friday evening shopping, concerts with international names, the Old Town Festival and the Brunico Christmas Market in the Advent period also make the town the social meeting place of the Val Pusteria. For an aperitif, people meet in the old town between Brunico Castle and the Tschurtschenthaler Park at the other end, or around the newly designed Town Hall Square. In addition, there is the Stegona Market in October, the annual market with a funfair: If you buy something warm to wear here, you'll get through the winter in good shape, as the old saying goes.
