Anciently, too, the town was fought for and tossed hither and thither by those powerful civil lords the Terriolis, Counts of Tyrol, and the militant spiritual lords the Prince Bishops of Trent. For this reason, and on account of many fires and "grievous o'erflowings of the Talfer in past times," of the most ancient of all Bozens there are comparatively few traces, though within the old town there are yet traceable some interesting relics of the Middle Ages. In those long back times Bozen was a place of even greater commercial importance than now. To its four annual markets or fairs people from many lands came, and it became the depôt and centre of the great transport trade by the two chief passes leading from Italy into Tyrol and thence to Germany and Austria. As was not unnatural Bozen merchants had a standing of their own, and were, according to one authority, "not a little purse proud and exclusive in their dealings, save when the latter meant that financial advantage would thereby accrue to them." Although Bozen does not commend itself to most tourists from higher latitudes for a lengthy stay, at least not in summer, as the basin in which it lies, though making it delightfully sheltered in winter, causes the town in the months of July and August to be decidedly hot and rather enervating, there are several places in the immediate neighbourhood to which one can flee for fresher air and cooler days. The town has somewhat declined commercially from the high position it once held, when the trade which flowed into Tyrol through it and northwards out of it was chiefly along the high-roads and over the passes; and thus through Bozen a very appreciable percentage of the whole southern and Italian trade passed. But nevertheless it is still a most flourishing and interesting town. A native writer says, on this subject, "Bozen ... has during the last decade largely recovered the ground it had temporarily lost through the making of railways, and the decline of transport along the high-roads of the passes owing chiefly to the increased facilities that have arisen for conveyance of merchandize by sea." Certainly one is soon able, when in the town, to realize that in two branches of trade at least Bozen occupies an undoubtedly high position in the commercial world, those of wine, and fruit growing and exporting. The hillsides are literally studded with vineyards and orchards, and Bozen fruit has gained for itself an almost world-wide reputation.