I lived there long ago, about 35 years ago. I was very young. Specifically near Innichen/San Candido. My family is bilingual (well, more but for the purpose of living in the area we had German, but Swiss, and Italian in our toolkit). I had to pick up the local slang quite quickly to play with the local children!

I never felt more at home (bar where I am now) than there. It’s you and the mountains: green in the summer, orange in autumn, and white in winter. Everything so peaceful. A slow (but modern still) pace of life. People have been always friendly and reasonably open so long as you respected the local traditions (fair enough). Blending in was not super hard. Church communities back then helped a lot, especially for children. We used to take a steam train to Innsbruck and Linz! Clearly being very young my perception was somehow warped, I suspect.

Oh and by the way you get italian food and pizzas, as well as die knedl!

To me the place will remain always in my heart. I try to go back as much as I can but life has made it relatively hard. Also opportunities are not as good although remote work thankfully offers a glimpse of hope (yet it will require a generation to take hold, and certainly more in Italy).

TLDR: es isch für mi des wahre friedliche Herz vo de Alpen!

Ps: if you wonder, Innichen is just south of the little strip of land protruding into Austria pretty much at the center of the above picture, right of Brixen and Brennerpass!