I'm back from a not-very-springy Spring Break trip to South Tyrol and Vienna in mid-March. This got long--I hope someone eventually finds it useful!
Day 1. After flying from Newark to Milan, I took the train to Milano Centrale. Since you can't go from there to Bolzano without transferring anyway, I checked my luggage at Verona station (12 euros for two bags) and walked around. The sights didn't feel particularly noteworthy--I never even found the "Juliet balcony"--but it was early afternoon on the first warm day of the year and boisterous local teens getting out of school were probably a better reference to R&J than a faux location anyway! I was there for about three hours, which felt right, before continuing on to Bolzano, where I stayed at the Goldenstern Townhouse, which I'd highly recommend. It's an agglomeration of four medieval townhouses, renovated in a sophisticated way, and offering a lovely breakfast. They are upfront on the website about not having an elevator, but they actually did have an elevator for luggage, just not for the guests, which was fine with me. I had dinner at the Wirtshaus Vögele--Spargel (white asparagus) season was on. In fact there was a big market right in the middle of the town selling lots of Spargel among other things. Thoroughly charming.
Day 2. Perhaps my loveliest travel day in a long time. I took a morning walk to the Waltherplatz, where the trees already had some spring flowers and the cathedral's patterned roof stood out against a perfectly clear sky. Then I went into the Dominikanerkirche to see the frescoes. They were beautiful, and people puttering around the church were keen to make sure I knew how to work the timed lightswitches and audioguide to access on your phone. Then I headed to the Archaeology Museum (aka Ötzi Museum) as it opened. A thorough examination took me under two hours, as it is not large and wasn't crowded in March. It reminded me of the Vasa Museum in Stockholm, one of my favorites, in that it combined a discovery, what was learned from it, how it was conserved--lots of layers. Definitely worth the RS Guide's high rating. Next, I found the Johanniskirche, which I saw was open only on Saturdays from 10am-12:30pm. I arrived around 12:15, expecting to have a quick gander, but found the church staffed by an elderly man called Alfred, who was keen to tell me about the church, the art, and the history of the area (in German). I learned a lot, and he was really sweet--I lucked out to have had Saturday as my sightseeing day! I had lunch at the nearby Batzen Häusl--outdoors, since it was probably in the low 60s at this point. Then I set off for Castle Runkelstein/Runcolo, which has notable secular medieval frescoes. The potential routes were confusing, so I stopped to ask some of the few people I encountered. It turned out that they were long-term Bolzano residents from Ecuador and spoke Spanish and Italian, not much German or English--a father, mother, and son about 8 years old. So we couldn't converse much, but they were also headed to the castle on their weekend promenade and took me with them on a walk of 20-30 minutes uphill, wanting to make sure I ended up in the right place. The frescoes at the castle were worth the walk. I took the bus back down, then had a wonderful dinner at the Franziskanerstube.
Days 3-8. I did a Backroads trip (Dolomites snowshoeing). Arriving a day early as a buffer was smart--all the other guests had spent the prior day coping with a one-day Italian rail strike. This trip was a splurge, involving a 5-star spa hotel (the Alpenroyal) and special guides to take us through un-signposted alpine meadows and ridges with untouched snow in the area of Selva di Val Gardena and Ortisei. On the last day of the trip, they dropped us back off in Bolzano, where I stayed at the Park Laurin for proximity to the train station--fine, but not nearly as interesting as the Goldenstern Townhouse.