Events & News
A valuable gift: Her Imperial Majesty’s cake at the Touriseum
The Touriseum at Trauttmansdorff Castle has recently welcomed a rather curious object: one of the showcases for the permanent exhibition about the history and former inhabitants of the castle contains a cake, baked 118 years ago for the Empress Elisabeth at the Sonnenwirt inn in Nals.
It was late September 1897 when the Empress Elisabeth (Sissi) took a trip to the village of Nals on the occasion of her fourth and final stay in the spa town of Meran. There she visited the Sonnenwirt (Sun) inn. In high excitement the landlady baked a cake, of which the Empress ate only a thin slice: no one touched any of the rest. The cake was subsequently carefully kept and taken by the landlady's son to Algund, where it was kept until the present day at the Pension Kapellgut.
It was very important for Walburga and Franz Mair, proprietors of the Kapellgut in Algund, to make sure that this family heirloom found a safe home that was both accessible to visitors and in some way connected to the Empress's stay in Meran. The Director of the Touriseum, Patrick Gasser, expressed his thanks to the Mair family for their valuable gift: "This donation enriches our permanent exhibition on the former inhabitants of Trauttmansdorff Castle. The Empress's recurring stays in Meran and at Trauttmansdorff Castle were a particular reason for the tourist boom that the city witnessed in the final third of the 19th century".
The Touriseum is also open until 20 December on each Friday, Saturday and Sunday (and on 7 and 8 December) from 9 am to 4:30 pm. In addition to the museum tour, which recounts the history of tourism in South Tyrol, the historic rooms of Trauttmansdorff Castle can also be visited. Every Saturday morning at 11:00 am the Meran Music School stages concerts in the Deuster Hall, while on Sunday the Empress Elisabeth's lady-in-waiting guides visitors through the castle rooms (in Italian). The surrounding gardens are closed during this time.
For more information please contact the South Tyrol Museum for Tourism (Touriseum), St.-Valentin-Strasse 51a, Meran, tel. 0473 255655, homepage: http://www.touriseum.it/ E-mail: info@touriseum.it.
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