Meran

Meran is the spa where empresses wintered and festivals now summer. The South Tyrolean town — Merano in Italian, bilingual in life — built its fame on air: the mild basin under the Texel massif drew the Habsburg world's convalescents, none more famously than Empress Elisabeth, whose stays crowned Meran as the monarchy's favourite cure town; the belle-époque inheritance survives intact in the arcaded Laubengasse, the promenades along the Passer — Winter and Summer walks, the Tappeiner path terracing the mountainside — and the Kurhaus, the Jugendstil festival palace whose Kursaal remains one of the Alps' loveliest halls.

Music fills it accordingly: the Meran Music Weeks — the südtirol festival merano — bring the world's great orchestras and soloists to the Kurhaus each late summer, a festival of international rank that makes the little spa a fixture on the touring calendars of famous ensembles; the town's own seasons continue the courtly tradition year-round in concerts from classical to jazz.

Sissi's garden apotheosis came late: Trauttmansdorff Castle's botanical gardens, ranked among Europe's most beautiful, amphitheatre the empress's former residence in eighty landscapes, the Touriseum inside telling Alpine tourism's story. Add Matteo Thun's thermal baths, wine villages on every slope and the Dolomites within excursion: Meran takes its cure with full orchestra.