The place name is attested from 1005 and is probably pre-Roman, later crossed with the German Farn, fern. The coat of arms, though, tells of an exchange: the knights of Voitsberg took the name von Vahrn when they bought Castel Salern above the village, and it was their insignia that later became the comune's. Of the castle, destroyed in 1277, clearly visible ruins remain. Varna is also called the gate of the sun, because it stands where the upper Isarco valley opens into the basin of Bressanone.
The village grew on the old Brenner road, with innkeepers and craftsmen who lived off the carting traffic. When the Brenner railway opened in 1867 that traffic ended, and Varna reinvented itself as a summer resort: until the First World War, from May to October, guests came from Vienna and Munich to rest in the shade of its chestnut trees, and around 1910 it was a Viennese banker who built the first modern hotel. The abbey of Novacella stands in the comune, and along the road up to Scaleres there are open-air Kneipp baths, free to anyone, in the icy water of the torrent.
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Near Varna
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