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The Ritten and Earth Pyramids

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Earth Pyramids

The Ritten is a region in Northern Italy, almost 1000m above the city of Bolzano-Bozen. The region offers many hiking trails between small villages. The trails have views of the surrounding mountains and of a rare geological phenomenon called Earth Pyramids. The earth pyramids are formed by the soft clay eroding on steep cliffs. The eroding clay sometimes exposes hard rocks, which become protective caps of the clay beneath them. The clay around the rock continues to erode, leaving a thin towering pyramid with a round rock on top. Eventually, the rock falls off, and the pyramid erodes away. It's quite a sight to see.

The Cable Car & Train - Rittner Seilbahn or Funivia Del Renon

Renon-Rittner Cable Car

You can get to the Ritten by cable car from the city of Bolzano. The cable car travels 951 meters up. The cable car provides a nice view of the city of Bolzano, and the mountain side. The cable car takes 12 minutes. The railway is part of an old railway line (over 100 years old), that connected Bolzano to Collalbo-Klobenstein. Today, the train travels from Soprabolzano-Oberbozen to Collalbo-Klobenstein. If you take the cable car from Bolzano, take the train to Collalbo where you can take an easy 2.6 km trail to see the earth pyramids. A combination ticket for the cable car and the train that travels between the villages in the Ritten costs about 5€.

Food & Cafes

Cafe Erdpyramiden

Along the roads in the Ritten you walk past a scattering of houses, inns, and cafes. We stopped at Cafe Erdpyramiden for some German pastries. The pastries cost about 2€ each.

Visiting Time

Pastries from Cafe Erdpyramiden

The cable car takes 12 minutes, and leaves every 4 minutes. The train left about every 30 minutes and took about 15-20 minutes to get from one end to the other. There are several trails ranging from 2km to 11km, including a trail that leads to another cable car that you can ride to the top of the Rittner Horn mountain.