Double identity

Michael Gebicki finds doppelgangers all around in an Italian city of distinctly Austrian flavour.

'Are we still in Italy?" The man on the platform at the station in Bolzano is perplexed, and I know what he means. So convincingly does Bolzano mirror the architecture, the language, the manners and the mores of Austria's nearby Tyrol region that it's all I can do to stop myself from answering "Ja!"

Located in Italy's most northerly province, Bolzano is the capital of South Tyrol, which the Italians know as the Alto Adige, the High Adige, after the river that gallops through its heart.

Until the end of the First World War this was Austrian territory, and Bolzano still prefers to think of itself as something other than true red, white and green Italian. German is the lingua franca, "Guten tag" the standard greeting.

Pasticcerie are konditorei here, and men in knickerbockers with alpenstocks and Tyrolean hats with feathers tucked into the band can sometimes be seen strolling through Bolzano's Piazza Erbe - Obstmarkt to the locals.

Even the name "Bolzano" has a doppelganger. To the German-speaking population, this is not Bolzano at all, but Bozen. And though you might find me in Waltherplatz enjoying a kaffee mit torte, to me this is lovely and lyrical "Bolzano", never "Bozen".

It's the towering peaks of the Dolomites surrounding the city that give the game away. Bolzano is the base for hiking, biking, skiing and mountaineering trips in some of Europe's most sensational alpine country. Most travellers who pass through Bolzano are looking for adventure, but it's well worth pausing here just to catch your breath and take in the sights.

Much of Bolzano's charm comes from its age. In the city centre, nothing much has been built since the late 19th century, and the cityscape is dominated by bell towers and church spires, the most impressive being the cathedral that sits under a decorative tiled roof at the city's mediaeval heart. The daily produce market brings life to the cobblestones of Piazza delle Erbe, where open-fronted stalls sell everything from strawberries to wines, speck and kaminwurzen, the local smoked sausage. Cafes spill across the cobblestones of Waltherplatz, and along Mustergasse is a series of baroque facades that were once the homes of the city's wealthiest merchants and bankers.

Poised photogenically on a sharp crag overlooking Bolzano is the 10th-century castle Sigmundskron, part of the Messner Mountain Museum created by local lad Reinhold Messner, one of the greatest mountaineers. In contrast to the stone walls of the thousand-year-old castle, the museum is a surprisingly modernist steel-and-glass construction furnished with symbolic objects, quotes and memorabilia from various mountaineering expeditions that explore the almost mystical relationship between mountains and the people who live there. If the museum proves inspirational, you can easily follow Messner's footsteps in modest fashion by taking the cable cars that hoist you from Bolzano to outstandingly luscious mountainsides.