Naturns: Landscape, Trails and History

Naturns lies at the foot of the Texel Group Nature Park. The Sonnenberg is home to a sparse dry grassland landscape considered a rarity in the Alps. This gives you a choice of both landscape and culture when planning your trip. The places and activities mentioned differ in whether trails, church history, an exhibition or a leisure option is the main focus.

Landscape, Trails and Activities

Around Naturns, Waalwege trails run alongside historic irrigation channels; they are mostly flat hiking trails. By contrast, the Hoachwool via ferrata has several steep vertical sections graded D. The new variant even reaches E/F. Thus, mostly flat hiking trails stand in contrast to steep via ferrata sections with specified difficulty grades. This distinction makes the types of routes concrete for your planning without grouping them together as a single type of activity.

The Via Vinum Venostis is a year-round circular route in Naturns that can be walked in either direction. Information boards cover the landscape, wine, restaurants and estate wineries. Here, the route format and thematic orientation come together: the circular route can be walked in either direction, while the boards cover a range of topics.

Families and leisure cyclists can enjoy relaxed rides along the Etschradweg cycle path, which follows the Via Claudia Augusta. The mini-golf park in Naturns's sports zone has two courses. Cycling and mini golf are therefore also part of the selection as distinct activities.

Museums and Churches in Naturns

The Museo San Procolo displays Gothic frescoes removed from the church, as well as archaeological finds from the Church of San Procolo. The exhibition thus presents wall paintings and archaeological finds as two distinct types of evidence from the same church context.

The museum route at the St. Proculus Church Museum offers a perspective across time. Its four stations, each in a different place and period, take visitors through Late Antiquity, the Early Middle Ages, the Late Middle Ages and the Thirty Years' War. The sequence thus covers several named periods rather than focusing on a single construction date.

At the Late Gothic parish church of St. Zeno in Naturns, by contrast, two construction phases can be distinguished by their specific dates: the church was built between 1474 and 1475, and its choir was rebuilt in the Baroque style in 1760. Thus, the St. Proculus Church Museum's view across different periods and St. Zeno's precisely dated construction history offer distinct approaches to the past.

Water from the Valley Floor to the Glacier Region

The Texel Group Nature Park Visitor Centre in Naturns has its own thematic focus: its permanent exhibition is dedicated to water and takes visitors from the Etsch in the valley floor up to the glacier region. This span connects two different landscape settings within a single exhibition theme. Naturns can therefore be understood not only through its trails and historic sites, but also through the range from the valley floor to the glacier region.

Discover more destinations: Nals, Tisens, Algund, Moos in Passeier, Hafling, Vöran, Riffian, Meran

For the main travel overview: Burggrafenamt.