Merano

Merano lies in a mountain basin at the entrance to the Passeier Valley and the Vinschgau. The Romans maintained a road station in the Adige valley, while the settlement called Mairania appears in a document of 857. In the thirteenth century the counts of Tyrol raised Merano to town status and made it the capital of their county. After Countess Margaret handed Tyrol to the Habsburgs in 1363, the town remained a centre of the territory. Its prominence declined when Duke Frederick IV moved the court to Innsbruck in 1420 and the mint followed to Hall in 1477.