This trip was a great way for me to get a vacation from my vacation to the States. After running around all over Denver, it was great to get away and relax without any sort of agenda or lists.
My planning for this trip was pretty much nonexistent. I had merely reserved a place before going to the States and knew nothing about the region. I discovered that this was a good thing. I had absolutely no expectations of what we should see or do and that made for a very relaxing trip. I have been informed that I tend to over plan a bit during our vacations. I generally have plans and then have back up plans to those plans.
The area we had chosen was called Südtirol (in German) or Alto Adige (in Italian). We originally wanted to be in the Alps after seeing how beautiful the mountains were on the way to Interlocken, but had a hard time finding a place to rent. However we figured that there would be fewer tourists and the food would be better in Italy than in Switzerland or Austria so it worked out in the end.
The area of Südtirol had at one time been part of Austria, but after WWI the region was given to Italy. The towns looked like they could have been anywhere in Austria and the people were blond and blue eyed. Almost everyone spoke German and all of the signs and menus were in both German and Italian which made things really easy for us since our German is definitely better than our Italian.
We rented an apartment in San Cassiano at Ciasa Antersies (www.ciasaantersies.it/home/index.php?lang=english). Our hosts were the cutest couple. They were engaged and had recently remodeled the whole place from a hotel to small little apartments. They were both so helpful. They recommended area restaurants, rides for Jim and hikes for me. Bettina lived in upstate NY for a while so had perfect English as well as Italian, German and French. I felt so inadequate with my pathetic German and mostly forgotten Spanish language skills.
After the long drive and unpacking process, we hunkered down for a night in with pasta (of course) and the new season of Weeds for a relaxing night.
The next day Jim was excited to get out on his bike and try out one of the rides our host had suggested. I brought my bike but after seeing the roads decided against riding. After not riding for a few weeks and suddenly having a few more inches around my middle, I decided that riding up and down 16% grade, windy mountain roads with crazy Italian drivers wasn’t the smartest idea.
I ended up going for a hike right from our hotel. The plan was to do about a 2-3 hour hike but it ended up being 4 ½ hours. I somehow got off of the very well marked trail system and came across another trail which I took instead of simply turning around. I ended up going up a very steep trail that took me above tree line. I was determined to get to the top of the mountain but after the trail turned into pretty loose scree so after losing my footing a few times, I realized that hiking an expert only trail by myself while 21 months preggers might not be a very good idea so I turned around and vowed to get to the top with Jim later in the week.
We were both pretty wrecked from our respective workouts so after relaxing a bit and getting cleaned up, we walked into San Cassiano and had dinner at a pizzeria.
On Monday morning, we woke up to a gray sky and a dismal weather forecast for rain. We decided to have a lazy morning in and then both went for a short run.
We planned to go to Bolzano for the day due to the rain. However, by the time we had gotten lunch in town it was already 2:30 so we were getting a pretty late start. As we started driving, we realized that the drive would be a lot longer than we anticipated even though Bolzano was only about 75km away. The roads were very windy and with the rain it was very slow going. After driving for 30 minutes we decided that we really needed a full day in Bolzano to make it worth the drive so we turned around.
We stopped in Corvara on the way home to stock up at a larger grocery store and then spent the rest of the rainy day in our apartment.
We got some cards from our hostess but after I beat Jim a few times in gin, he didn’t feel like playing anymore. I love playing cards and have tried to get Jim to play more often. I guess my technique of beating the crap out of him every time we play isn’t working. I may need to try a Las Vegas style strategy and let him win a few times to get the sweet taste of victory before going in for the kill.
The next day, we decided to give Bolzano another try. Jim went for a short 2 hour ride while I hiked and we set off for Bolzano. We had to go over 2 mountain passes to get to the autostrada which took over an hour. The signage for the autostrada was confusing so we ended up on a frontage road instead of the fast highway. Unfortunately, there were no on ramps all the way to Bolzano so the autostrada just taunted us from above while we were stuck on a slow windy road behind a bunch of trucks.
After finding parking, we stumbled upon the restaurant/hotel that I had researched so popped in to make a reservation for later that night. We got a coffee on the terrace and then headed out to explore the town.
Bolzano was a pretty small town of only 100,000. However, being Italy it still had some really great shopping. After seeing the restaurant, Jim felt underdressed in his t-shirt and jeans so we did some shopping for a new outfit.
Our next stop was the Museum of Archaeology to see Ötzi the Iceman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otzi). He was found in 1991 by some German hikers very near the Italian / Austrian border. He was from the Copper Age and was about 5,300 years old. The museum is really a mummy museum. It explains the various ways something can be mummified either artificially as part of a burial or naturally in a bog or a desert. It was a very interesting exhibit but by the third floor we were a bit “mummied out”.
We had dinner at Restaurant Laurin in a beautiful garden. Being Italy, they didn’t start serving dinner until 7:30 and the maître d wouldn’t seat us before but did seat another women. He was a little snooty and Jim was offended so dinner wasn’t off to a good start. However, we had an adorable waiter who was great and that made up for the earlier snub. We had a great dinner in their beautiful gardens and then drove back to San Cassiano.
The next day Jim went for another ride while I explored the other side of the valley. I hiked up to a high Alpine meadow up to Utia Pralongia. All over this region, there are chair lifts and restaurants that service skiers during the winter. There were tons of people up there sunning themselves and eating lunch. It was a great place for kids who might not be able to handle the steep hike up. They could ride the chair lift and still get rewarded with gorgeous 360 degree mountain views.
Back in San Cassiano, there was a festival with a band and the streets were lined with craft and food vendors. We bought some local cheeses and then went to dinner at a grill that was recommended to us. The special was thyme encrusted venison and it was amazingly tender.
On Thursday, Jim decided he’d beat himself up enough on the bike and we went for an 8 hour hike. We went back up the same trail that I was forced to abandon on Monday. The hike was one of the most amazing hikes I’ve ever done.
The terrain was so varied throughout the hike that it felt like we were in completely different areas. The hike started out in a dense forest which then became just shrubs before going above tree line where there was no vegetation and just scree. At the top of the climb, we were in a huge bowl that had an eerie moonscape feel to it with a smooth windblown and weather beaten rock surface. As we descended farther down there were increasingly more and more tufts of green grass sprouting through the rock until we came to a grass basin with a small herd of cows munching lazily with their bells echoing through the alpine plateau. Jim and I were both completely at a loss for how those cows made it to that high point. There must have been an easier way up because the cows could never have climbed up the way we had just come.
Thankfully, the trail went by a restaurant that was originally a shelter for people herding their cows over the pass. We hadn’t packed enough food or water for the hike so we stopped for lunch and filled up our camelback.
We passed a number of alpine lakes before descending down through the Col de Locia back to San Cassiano. Much to our dismay, the parking lot where the trail ended was not the end of our hike. We were still a few miles from San Cassiano so we refreshed ourselves with some ice cream bars and continued on our way.
After such an epic hike, we were both so exhausted and couldn’t do much more than read in bed before heading down to town for some pizza and schulter which is a half moon ravioli filled with spinach and ricotta cheese in a parmesan and butter sauce typical of the region.
On our last day in Alto Adige we went to the nearby ski town of Corvara for an amazing lunch at La Perla (http://www.hotel-laperla.it/gallery-view-alta-badia-e.htm) and then wandered around the town checking out the various shops.
We had an amazingly relaxing week in the mountains with great food and friendly people. We were sad to be leaving the next day. I’d recommend this area to anyone looking for a low key, relatively inexpensive mountain location which isn’t overrun with tourists.
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