Overview
For those down along the Adige, between Rovereto and Trento, the fortress appears gigantic and somewhat mysterious, stretched out on a spur at the entrance to the valley towards the Folgaria and Lavarone plateaus. You will want to reach it, go inside and get to know it, as long as you have time to negotiate the steep climb from State Road 12 to the Brenner Pass and leave your car at its foot before the short trek to the entrance. It is a world apart inside: almost a mediaeval and Renaissance military village to be discovered among the ramparts, staircases, walkways and bas-reliefs, conversely contemporary in the explanation panels and some exhibition rooms with 16th-century cavalry weapons and harnesses.
Removing Castel Beseno from oblivion and the inner circle of fortification, enthusiasts came in the year 2000 with the important exhibition "approx. 1500 Landesausstellung 2000". Some of the objects in the castle did well to maintain the displays from that 500th anniversary: they recalled, above all, the battle of Calliano in 1487, when a fierce battle was fought around the Adige between troops in the service of Venice and the Habsburg imperial army, with the latter winning.
The defence system is very well-preserved. Of the three ramparts, which had already been built at that time for the use of weapons, two are located at the ends towards Trento and Rovereto, while the central one corresponds to the residential palace of the Trapp counts. The meadow between two of the three city walls was to be used for troops and military training, but perhaps also for vineyards and fields for cultivation. Much of the patrol walkway is still passable and very scenic.
