Trentino Alto Adige

In many ways, the Trentino-Alto Adige region of Italy is the least Italian of them all. Its northern frontier is high in the Alps and Dolomite mountains, bordering Switzerland and Austria. This area is the Alto-Adige or the province of Balzano and is essentially the Italian side of the Austrian Tyrol region. The hardy mountain people of this portion of the region are firmly entrenched in their German heritage and Italian is often the second language. Moving south toward the province of Trentino, life is more Italian as one gets closer to the neighboring regions of the Veneto, Lombardy and the northern shores of Lake Garda. This sparsely populated region is home to one of the few linguistic minorities left in Europe as the Alto Adige harbors the last speakers of the Ladin language. Ladin is Romanized version of the Germanic dialects that were once spoken here and today the language clings to existence with fewer than 100,000 speakers left.

The area has been important since time immemorial due to the existence of the Brenner Pass through the Alps and so whoever controlled the region could control all trade flowing north and south. It is for this region that the mountainous region has been fought over for centuries and today is home to many castles and forts perched upon mountain tops.