What is the Bolzano outdoor escape game?
The Bolzano outdoor escape game is a puzzle trail on your smartphone through the historic centre: each of the 10 stops hides a puzzle that you solve by reading the scene in front of you and thinking it through logically. Set aside about 2 hours, including 33 minutes of walking over 2.5 km, and begin on a day that suits you.
Every puzzle is tied to one place, from the tiled roof of the cathedral to the arcades of Via dei Portici and the fountain in Piazza delle Erbe, and each stands alone with no storyline linking them. Bolzano is a good setting for this: street names are signed in German and Italian, and the old town mixes both traditions within a few lanes. Up to three levels of hints are available when you need them.
- Durationabout 2 hours
- Walkingabout 33 min · 2.5 km
- Stops10
- LanguagesEnglish, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch
What you do on the escape game
Figure it out
Work out each puzzle from what surrounds the landmark. You do not need any background knowledge to start.
Scan the details
Signs, façades and the layout of each square carry the clues, so notice what most visitors walk straight past.
Follow the map
Google Maps takes you from one puzzle to the next: about 33 minutes on foot across roughly 2.5 km.
Set your own pace
There is no timer. Use a hint when you are stuck, sit down for a break and pick the game up later or another day.
See the route and attractions →
How it works
- Book online Choose the number of players. Your booking reference arrives by email straight away.
- Get the app Download the World City Trail app from the App Store or Google Play and enter your booking reference.
- Play when you like Start whenever you are ready, walk at your own pace and pause any time. No guide, no fixed schedule.
Who it suits
Friends on a day out
Every stop gives the group something new to argue about, and no one needs to know the city beforehand.
Couples
Working through a puzzle together keeps the conversation going from one landmark to the next, at a relaxed pace.
Team building
Teams of up to 5 play on their own phones, so colleagues can split up the puzzles or solve them side by side.
Good to know
- Bring a charged smartphone with mobile data; a power bank helps.
- Best started in daylight, so you can see the details the puzzles ask about.
- No entry tickets needed: everything happens outside the buildings. Going inside is optional and paid separately.
- Family friendly; children must be accompanied by an adult.
- Not suitable for wheelchair users and difficult with strollers.
- Teams of up to 5 work best; bigger groups split into several teams, one ticket per player.
- Every purchase helps support stray cats and dogs in Greece.
Puzzle route: from Bolzano Cathedral to the Dominican Church
10 stops · about 33 min walking · start: Bolzano Cathedral · finish: Dominican Church
Leaving the cathedral behind, you pass Piazza Walther and wander into the old town, where the arcades of Via dei Portici and the market square of Piazza delle Erbe wait. Next come the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology, the City Museum and the Victory Monument, followed by Museion and finally the Dominican Church. Daylight is best for the start, because rain or wind slow outdoor play. Google Maps leads you from stop to stop, the app allows reordering, and no entry tickets are needed.
Open the route map ↗
1Bolzano CathedralStart
The Cathedral of the Assumption is a Gothic church built mainly in the 14th and 15th centuries on the site of earlier churches. Its steep roof is covered with colourful glazed tiles, and its openwork spire, completed in the early 16th century, rises high above the old town.
2Piazza Walther
Bolzano's main square, laid out in the early 19th century, is named after Walther von der Vogelweide, the medieval poet of courtly love, whose marble statue stands in the middle. The fascist authorities removed the statue in 1935, and it returned only in 1981. Each winter the square hosts the city's Christmas market.
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3Bolzano Old Town
Bolzano grew in the Middle Ages as a market town on the trade route between Italy and the German-speaking lands over the Brenner Pass. Its narrow lanes, arcades and painted house fronts mix Italian and Tyrolean influences, and street names are signed in both German and Italian.
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4Via dei Portici
Bolzano's main shopping street, called Laubengasse in German, was laid out in the late 12th century by the bishops of Trento. Its long arcades shelter narrow, deep merchant houses, and the Mercantile Palace, built in the early 18th century, was the seat of the city's trade court.
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5Piazza delle Erbe
This square, called Obstplatz in German, has been home to a fruit and vegetable market for centuries. At its upper end stands an 18th-century fountain with a statue of Neptune, which locals nickname Gabelwirt because of the god's fork-like trident.
6South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology
This museum is the home of Ötzi, the Iceman, who lived about 5,300 years ago and whose body was found in a glacier in the Ötztal Alps in 1991. He is kept in a cooled chamber, and the museum also shows his clothes, his copper axe and the rest of his equipment.
7Bolzano City Museum
The City Museum is one of the oldest museums in South Tyrol, and its building near the river Talfer dates from the early 20th century. Its collections cover local art, history and folk culture.
8Victory Monument
The fascist regime built this marble triumphal arch between 1926 and 1928, designed by Marcello Piacentini, to celebrate Italy's victory in the First World War and the annexation of South Tyrol. Since 2014 a permanent exhibition beneath it explains its history and the city's past under fascism and Nazism.
9Museion
Museion is Bolzano's museum of modern and contemporary art, housed since 2008 in a glass and metal cube by the river Talfer. At night its glass façades can turn into a large screen for video art.
10Dominican ChurchFinish
Dominican friars founded this church and monastery in the 13th century. Its Chapel of St John is decorated with 14th-century frescoes by painters of the school of Giotto, an early sign of Italian painting north of the Alps.
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Alexandru P. (verified owner) –
Absolutely amazing experience. We visited Bolzano’s landmarks while solving puzzles that were not too hard, not too easy – just the perfect balance of Fair challenge and accessibility.
The thing we loved the most was that the game gave us all sorts of cultural and historical info about the places we were visiting.