Mendola Funicular

Mt. Mendola - the local mountain of Caldaro - was discovered as a summer retreat back in the 19th century: The pass (1,363 m a.s.l.) was not too high and was made accessible in 1885 by the newly inaugurated Mendola Road. Famous guests such as Empress Sissi and Mahatma Gandhi spent their holidays on the Mendola Pass. Today, you can still see the pretty wooden cottages inmidst a grand mountain scenery. Some 20 years after the construction of the pass road, a funicular was built.

This Mendola Funicular (Mendelbahn, in German), planned by the Swiss engineer Emil Strub, was opened in 1903 to connect the health resorts Mendola and Gries near Bolzano in a comfortable way. In 1905, the Mendola Funicular took Franz Joseph I of Austria to his military manoeuvres in the Val di Non valley. At those times, it was a real masterpiece of engineering: Austria's first electrically operated cable car (in the 19th century South Tyrol was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), the steepest funicular in continental Europe and the longest one in the world.

With a gradient of up to 64%, still today it represents one of the steepest funicular railways throughout Europe. In 1988, the old cabins were replaced by modern ones, offering a spectacular view on the valley. The ride from the valley station in Sant'Antonio (523 m a.s.l.) to the mountain station (1,363 m a.s.l.) takes 12 minutes. The Mendola Funicular is accessible by the Caldaro Citybus and the public bus from Bolzano - in 2012, the contactless ticket voiding system was introduced. Today it is one of the means of the South Tyrol Integrated Transportation: Besides the single tickets, the value cards, usable also in public buses, and the SouthTyrol Pass are valid here.