Trento is a midsized Italian town with all the typical layers of history going all the way back to the roman era. I like these as they are not overcrowded with tourists, the attractions are priced reasonably and there’s still some amount of things to do and see when you aren’t riding.
Of course Airbnbs are 50-100% cheaper than in the larger more popular towns as well.

Trento is also known for being the location of the Council of Trent where a bunch of men in fancy costumes decided what fairy tales you had to believe and what fairy tales warranted horrible punishment. As I have learned from the lavish Italian cathedrals, it turns out men who based their religion on a carpenter mostly portrayed in underwear needed a surprising amount of wealth, armies and political power to spread the message of peace, love and charity.

Had a huge and modern Airbnb 2 bedrooms with A/C. Loved that place and so cheap.

Piazza Del Duomo. All these cities are organized the same, they all have a huge open plazza in the center of town near the cathedral.

"Fontana del Nettuno" in the main plazza

Tridentine Diocesan Museum next to the Duomo

Trento has a few trendy shopping streets ( tourist traps ). Check out this meat store. it's so red.

There was a cat cafe. I'd never been to one so I thought I would have a coffee there. 5 euro minimum.

Ok it was sort of lame and not really worth going but I appreciate the idea of rescuing cats and taking care of them there... They were chill.

The cemetery is on the way to the science museum and worth a quick look

Portoni di Santa Croce. "The doors marked the entrance to the avenue that led to the Palazzo delle Albere, built specifically to host the Council of Trent."

Mausoleum of Cesare Battisti, a striking structure located outside of town on a 100m hill. It also has a WW1 museum attached.

"Mura di Piazza Fiera". Just one remaining wall of an old medieval fortress.

Very typical downtown core of narrow streets and old buildings with lots of shopping and food.

Science Museum (MUSE)

Located on the outskirts of town in a newly designed building is this museum of natural history. Hey if you promise me dinosaurs and birds, I will go.

Really just sticks out so you understand why they had to build it outside the historic city core.

You can climb to the roof of the MUSE and see the Palazzo delle Albere right next to it. This one is an art museum ( did not go )

The MUSE is laid out around a huge wide open space where all sorts of animals are hanging

Section explaining the adaptations of alpine animals. Interesting! Snakes turn black to retain more heat!

Some actual snow

They have essentially every animal you can find in alpine environments

At the bottom the center piece is a grey whale skeleton

Helps to put into perspective how big it is and it's also just an interesting layout for a museum

The bottom floor is all about prehistory

Looking back up

History of humans

Never seen that before, I'll admit.

They also have every weird animal like pangolins, echidnas, aardvark and platypuses.

Small botanical / tropical garden section as well with some birds flying around.

It’s not a bad museum but maybe not exactly what you would come to Italy to experience. But hey, people are obsessed with “living like locals” in all these travel blogs and videos. Well locals don’t care about medieval crap anymore, they’ve seen it. Locals take their kids to the cool dinosaur museum and then the cat cafe and end the day at McDonald’s. I’ve seen them. They aren’t sitting in the main plaza paying 30 euros for ravioli delivered by a (male) waiter with resting bitch face. Why do they always look angry to serve me? You suck at your job.

Museo Castello del Buonconsiglio

This is “the big castle” in Trento, you can’t miss it. Built in the 13th century on a Roman fort and then expanded over time. It’s a really impressive construction but it doesn’t quite compare to what you can see in Venice. It’s still an interesting visit and you can buy a ticket to the Torre Aquila to see a fresco. No views. A bit underwhelming of an experience considering the impressive size of the castle.

It's hard to take good pictures of the castle since it's right in the city center and quite huge

There's an exhibit about the history of Trento from the paleolithic to the construction of the castle

Starting to get a good idea of Italian chronology from visiting all these museums

They have a nice collection of Bronze/Copper age tools and artifacts here as well. Things 4000-5000 years old

These are quite common, they are called "Fibula". Basically the pin they'd use to keep their clothes on.

The craftsmanship of them is so detailed considering these are thousands of years old.

A coin hoard. Sometimes soldiers stashed these away then died and farmers/construction workers rediscover the hoard thousands of years later.

Something I didn't know before coming is that Romans made quite a lot of things with glass

Then you get the Christian period where all the artwork becomes centered around Jesus and Saints and it's very repetitive to an almost oppressive degree

Still sometimes you get good paintings depicting other things

The original ( I think ) floors just polished over hundreds of years of footsteps

Inner courtyard with garden.

Lot of the original decorations are still to be seen on the roof. Even in a smaller castle they are impressive.

The famous painting of the council of Trent ( not the original ).

Temporary exhibition of Giacomo Francesco Cipper depicting Italian life in the 18th century

Just interesting works featuring the lives of everyday folk and what they did as passtimes or jobs. The 17th -19th century is the best period for art.

Various self-portraits he did at varying times of his life. If you saw the kinds of mirrors they had you'd be impressed too.

There's like 10 of these. It's strange that it took until around the late 16th century for painting to be used as photography instead of always religious representations

You can pay a little extra ( 2euro) to visit the Torre Aquila where the 14th century Duke had this huge fresco painted depicting life around the castle over all 12 months of the year

It depicts one of the very rare depictions of a snowfight. Mainly it's 12 months of the nobles prancing around/hunting/having fun with peasants doing work in the background.

Tridentum Sites

There are several sites in the city where you can access the (now underground ) ruins of the roman city of Tridentum, on top of which medieval settlements and Trento were eventually built. Was looking forward to actual Roman ruins!

The entrance. Museum was pretty deserted. In Italy everyone flocks to the same things so midsized cities that have really decent things are virtually empty of tourists.

A fun thing I've seen at no other museum: VR presentation about the history of the settlement and the various buildings as they might have looked during the Roman era. All museums should have this.

Large section on roman cooking/dining.

You can walk along sections of the old city walls, see the old streets and even the sewer system. In the middle ages people just destroyed or buried Roman constructions to settle their own towns.

Remains of a huge fresco that people dug a big well in the middle of during the Middle Ages. They did not care about conserving things.

What the original fresco might have looked like. How do you even know?

Despite doing everything by hand people in Antiquity achieved really impressive constructions and products that modern technology can only add some extra polish onto.

The old street, worn by centuries of people walking into town. There's a separate part with grooves dug by cart wheels.

Second location 10 minutes away. This place is just one Villa but it's huge. I think this served as a spa where people went to take hot baths and relax.

This is cool: The floor was set on top of these columns so that hot air could be circulated under to have a heated floor in the room with the baths.

The 3D visit and some of the videos they have really made you appreciate how modern Roman daily life was. Their homes looked so similar to many of the Italian houses I see today with the red tiled roofs. They had decent sized houses, kitches, baths, all the same furniture like cabinets/chairs/tables and most of the same tools for cooking or gardening. If you take electricity out of a house you essentially have a level of comfort they’d already achieved 2500 years ago.

That’s it for Trento, onto Badia next in the heart of the Dolomites for some (hopefully) epic riding if the weather cooperates!

All the links to the Italian Trip:

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Trento Tourism and Travel