There is a Tyrolean saying that goes “Was ma nit ändern kann, nimmt ma mit Anstand”, which loosely translates to “what cannot be changed, one accepts with good grace”. It is in that spirit that my travel companion and I, both high on a panacea of medication soldiered north along the freight-laden Italian autostrada. We were heading to the oldest town in Tyrol.
Between myself buoyed by cortisones and anti-histamines and him, sustained by oxycodone from a miserable dental dry socket; with heavy trucks thundering past us, and Italy on high alert for heatwave, “Was ma nit ändern kann, nimmt ma mit Anstand” — and with good grace we did!
If you take Brixen or Prihsna, as it was once called in 901 AD from the north, emerging from the Brenner Pass or descend from the Dolomites in the west, crossing wooded ridges and hair-pin bends, one quickly discovers that the deepest satisfaction comes not from the string of stunning scenery unraveling in front of you but from escaping the traffic-choked highway behind.
Approaching Brixen from the east, high pastures unfold in succession dotted by church spires and vineyards. To arrive from the south, a traveler often wonders as to which point did Italy end and Austria begin?
Visually Brixen appears Austrian. Geographically it’s Italian. On most days it calls itself Brixen when it is feeling Tyrolean and Bressanone when the paperwork requires it.
Still, the southern route, linking the Mediterranean to the greater German lands, has always been a passage of choice since Roman times. Wandering scholars have passed through here, so were merchants, bishops, bandits, Bohemian nobles and imperial bankers. It’s the route we were taking and the very same one traversed by an Asian elephant in 1515 on its way to Vienna — the first such creature seen north of the Alps since Hannibal in 218 BC.
I began to suspect that if one should arrive and come to Brixen, it is perhaps, the way the elephant once did.
After months at sea from southern India to Lisbon, ‘Soliman’ the elephant might have imagined his maritime voyage coming to a close. Instead another ship carried him onward to Barcelona and then to Genoa. From the Ligurian coast, the bewildered four-legged beast began yet another long journey, this time by foot, stopping at Trento, Bolzano and in Brixen with great fanfare before his final destination. Vienna. There he was presented as a gift from King John II of Portugal to his nephew, the Archduke Maximilian of Austria.
Our journey which started from Barcelona to Genoa and culminated in Brixen barely holds weight to the arduous journey undertaken by an elephant lumbering through the Alps.
Soliman’s arrival in Brixen, a town more accustomed to encountering popes and princes’ but never before a pachyderm, had a profound effect amongst its residents. It was as if Brixen had been touched by some divine blessing, that the town had never quite recovered from the elephant’s encounter.
So much so that there is even a hotel named after it. The Hotel Elephant, a former inn where Soliman rested his weary limbs for fourteen days, grew around the enduring memory of the first animal guest who checked into the hotel one cold night in December 1551.
Fast forward to today, a fresco of Soliman can be seen on the Hotel Elephant’s exterior walls. A part of me feels that Soliman keeps a watchful gaze through the hotel’s paintings and from every elephant ornament the hotel has amassed over the years.
In addition to the sleek-gilded elephant door handles and elephant themed rails appendaging its bar counter, modern touches have recently been added such as the elephant neon sign that crowns the roof of the 15th century institution. Needless to say, the hotel run by the same family since 1773 still recall their elephant guest with reverence reserved only for emperors or miracles.
Ask Michael Falk, a descendant of the present Heiss-Falk family, about his earliest memory of Soliman the elephant and you get the impression that Soliman is somewhere in the hotel’s private garden and enjoying a nap. “My first memory of the elephant Soliman was the bedtime story from the book Suleiman the Elephant.” Margret Rettich’s vividly illustrated children’s book, inspired by the true story of an extraordinary creature and his remarkable journey across continents, have stayed with him ever since.
Growing up with the image of Soliman leaping out from the pages of the book only to discover years later that the elephant was real and even took residence for two weeks in his family’s estate. “A wonderful picture book representing the story,” Michael adds. A childhood tale that revealed itself to be history.
Habsburg emperors and kings came and went through its doors. It’s the preferred hotel by the old money. Hotel Elephant first found its way in the pages of the first Blue Guide to Northern Italy in 1924. More than a hundred years later, it still holds its modest place in the guidebook’s latest 2025 Blue Guide Trentino & South Tyrol edition.
It is only reasonable that my travel companion and I also take up lodging in one of the oldest hotels in the world situated in the oldest town in Tyrol.
If you are expecting to walk into a museum, there is none of that. You may likely encounter an ensemble of waiters parading the staircase, carrying polished silver trays that may have been used to serve the nobility on a layover or walk past guests taking their pedigreed poodles for a royal walk or stumble into one of the current eighth generation caretakers of the hotel, who also live on the property.
The rooms and suites are spread out amongst two different buildings. The historic main residence houses 30 private spaces with 13 recently renovated rooms on the rooftop and Villa Marzani in the adjacent private garden with 14 intimate accommodations.
The stube that kept the hotel warm during Soliman’s time is still doing its job. The underground stables from 1818 still pamper, however no longer for horses but cater to a discerning kind of clientele after its transformation into a wellness space featuring a spa, Finnish sauna and an indoor pool. What struck me most is that despite carrying 500 years of continued hospitality on its back, the hotel has not creaked under the heavy weight or pressure.
Michael, who takes the helm running the hotel’s Michelin-star restaurant ‘Apostelstube’, knows it too well. “Knowing about the hotel’s heritage felt at the beginning a little like a burden, but the older I got I began to love and to respect what my ancestors did in the past. Passing from one generation to the next having a lot of troubles in between (wars, economic crisis etc.) was an amazing achievement and showed the love to the Elephant.” Michael confides. I’m very proud of where we are now and I’m also happy to know how many things to further improve it are on our to-do list.
One unmistakable truth: Hotel Elephant has never been merely a refuge where travelers could put their feet up or in Soliman’s case, ease his overworked limbs. Rather, it’s a place that draws together small worlds from the furthest reaches of south Asia all the way to the great expanse of the north, from the borders in the east as well as the frontiers in the west. The same truth can also be said about Brixen whose vocation has long been to receive the world long before tourists discovered the Dolomites and South Tyrol has entered in the traveler’s imagination.
Not far from where the two rivers, the Eisack and the Rienz converge, I sauntered across town as cyclists drifted past and met hikers flushed with altitude on my way to the long-established Pharmaziemuseum. A repository of pharmaceutical items of all sorts from 16th-old apothecary jars sitting alongside vials of cyanide, renal contraptions to herbal remedies and alchemical instruments.
For a town ripe in ecclesiastical heritage since its founding and where religious healing mattered more than scientific cure, stepping into the museum, one feels a civilized paradox. Faith and reason occupying the same ground with ease.
The same casualness that manifests itself, as in the way two names sit on the same street sign. I remember reading directions to zentrum and centro as well as ausfahrt and uscita during our arrival into town. It’s no surprise that locals affectionately greet you with “Hoila” or “Griaßdi”, a Ladin dialect that sound like an amalgamation of German-Italian and send you off with a friendly “Tschüss” or the the perfectly serviceable “Ciao”. Yet, the very civilized truce however is constantly tested when it comes to football and politics, much to everyone’s chagrin.
Then again, isn’t it the same for other cities and countries in the world to be so divided when it comes to these matters, I thought?
To have a glimpse of the great Tyrolean ironies and perhaps understand its contradictionions, one may have to simply look into its past. Long been a territory of the Holy Roman Empire, the region was secularized during 1803 and came under Habsburg rule in Austria only to be ceded to Bavaria during the Napoleonic Wars then returned back to Austria by the Congress of Vienna. It was then handed to Italy in 1919 by a stroke of a pen under the treaty of Saint-Germain and not long after, Mussolini established his aggressive Italianization campaign banning German language in schools and changing the names of the towns into Italian.
Brixen or Bressanone is just a fraction of it. You may call it what you like. However, none of these have mattered anyway, especially to an elephant who did not choose which stable, or town or empire to rest in after a long walk.
There is another expression that locals also like to say, “Passt schon”, which means “It’s all good” or “It will do”. Whatever incongruity that sets the region apart, “passt schon.” And “passt schon” I say with a passion. It will do as long as it’s German enough to keep its dialect, Italian enough to keep its coffee, Tyrolean enough to welcome an elephant and two travelers nursing a woeful allergy and a dry socket.
I guess I found my ‘la deutsch-e vita’. At Hotel Elephant in Brixen, it’s all good. ✍🏻
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