Messner Mountain Museum Ripa — Attraction in Pustertal - Val Pusteria

A fantastic collection of beautiful artifacts of mountain peoples from all around the world. The Nirvana exhibit with chanting music was a highlight. Yet I struggle giving this museum even three stars. While there are some generic stories about each people, there is little explanation of what the artifacts are used for. Exhibits are a bit haphazard too. Another shortcoming is Messner's constantly repeated mantra that 'city people try to dictate how mountain people should look after their mountains". I am fine hearing the message, just not 30 times - it made me feel like an unwanted visitor, an intruder into people's personal space. And at our home we have a saying: "You can't complain unless you have a solution". And the museum is not giving any for this perceived battle between city folk and...

I thoroughly enjoyed my visit - you can easily spend several hours here. The castle itself is interesting, and it's nice to see both the very old original walls, and some well-fitting modern restorations / embellishments. It's a pretty walk up to it from the town centre. The exhibition in this museum (out of a total of 6 Messner mountain museums) is focussed on mountain people, so there are lots of artefacts showcasing the culture and way of life of such populations from all over the world. Genuinely new and educational to me. The castle also has a great little cafe / restaurant. The visit price of 9 Euros is well worth it, and if you are in the region for a while, the 35 Euro ticket for all museums, valid for a year, is...

The previous day we visited Messner mountain Firmian and we were delighted, so we wanted to give an opportunity to this one.

The ticket costs 14 euros but is free with the ritten card.

The museum was super disappointing. The locations were numbered but you cannot find any signal related to this. The pieces organization seems totally random. There are some dark rooms that you cannot almost see nothing. There’s only one person working at the ticket entrance and another one in the shop. The place looked barely abandoned.

We did one hour car to see this but I can assure you Rios museum is not worth it at all. Not recommended even with the...