In 1908, in distant Vienna, the beloved Emperor Franz Joseph was still in residence, and the Kohlern Church Festival was the social event of the summer. After the war and the end of the dual monarchy, silence fell on Mount Kohlern. But now, almost a hundred years later, the Kohlern Church Festival is once again considered a true insider’s tip.
The first Kohlern Church Festival took place on the Feast of the Assumption in 1744, when the church of the same name was consecrated. Although the festival is deeply rooted in faith (it still opens with an outdoor mass today), from the very beginning, it was also a secular celebration—a festival for the village community, conviviality, and togetherness. Back then, Mount Kohlern could only be reached via a narrow path, which was only replaced by a drivable road in 1986. This remoteness made the Kohlern residents a close-knit community, and at first, outsiders rarely ventured up there.
However, at the beginning of the 20th century, the innkeeper from Bolzano, Josef Staffler, recognized the mountain’s potential as a recreational area. To open the mountain to a broader public, he built the world’s first aerial cableway in 1908. This made the village of Kohlern and its church festival easily accessible even to the ladies and gentlemen of the "better society." To properly cater to this demanding clientele, he had an elegant hotel built on top of the mountain in the Belle Époque style. The church festival immediately became a regional highlight, attracting celebrities and curious visitors from near and far. This could have been the beginning of a success story, but then war, division, and dictatorship struck the land. In the 1930s, under the orders of the fascists, hospitality services on the mountain had to cease operations. Finally, in a fateful night in 1942, the cable car was destroyed by air raids. The lights on the mountain went out, and it would take many years for life to return to Mount Kohlern.
Finally, in 1966, the cable car was rebuilt. Around the same time, the Gasthof Kohlern was purchased by the well-known innkeeper family, the Schrotts, from Bolzano. The new owners lovingly restored and modernized the building, so that today, behind the elegant facade, lies a modern mountain hotel with a spa and a gourmet kitchen (Gault-Millau). This paved the way for the renaissance of the Kohlern Church Festival, which today, as in the past, attracts guests from both near and far.
It is the unique charm of this place that makes the Kohlern Church Festival so refreshingly distinctive. This feeling starts with the journey itself: one moment, you’re still in bustling Bolzano, and the next, you’re gliding up the mountain by cable car. You step off and find yourself in another world. In fact, the decades-long "sleeping beauty" state of Mount Kohlern has allowed the church festival to preserve much of its original character. So, come to Kohlern on August 15 and experience timeless tradition and a piece of old South Tyrol, now in a new light.