Merano

The whole region is very similar so I don't understand what you hope to see or do by merely crossing a border. Merano is a very pretty mountain area with lots to do. We so much liked taking a chair lift up a wooded mountain and hiking down that we found two to do. Another excursion we very much enjoyed was seeing Otzi the Iceman in Bolzano.

Just to let you understand what the places around you will be: Merano is a nice little city, an old world spa that was once attended by the aristocracy of the Austrian empire. Merano, Bolzano and Bressanone are the largest cities around. All other places like Silandro or Naturno are valley floor villages. Glorenza is interesting as it has retained its medieval walls , but still a tiny village. Sluderno has a medieval castle. Trafoi and Solda are mountain resorts, good for skying and hiking (Mrs. Merkel, the German head of government, spends a week each year in Solda). The lake just before Reschenpass is interesting as a village had to be abandoned to make place to the artificial lake and the bell tower still peeks out of the lake water. Mustair has a very old monastery, but otherwise is a very tiny village in a little populated zone (the whole village has 700 residents or so); all the Swiss area west of Italy is very lonely as it is the Swiss national park; also the Engadine villages are tiny and the only developed city in the area is St. Moritz. While the Italian area was formerly an Austrian department and has retained a German culture, the Swiss area has its own culture, Romantsch (an old neo-Latin language) is spoken and the general atmosphere is more severe.

By the way, you do not need a car: you can take a train up to Malles (Mals on German timetables) where Italian buses go up to Nauders, Austria, or Swiss post buses all the way to Zernez, Switzerland.