Advertisement
Published: June 13th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Toto, We're Not In Italy Anymore
Bolzano was such a contrast from the Italy I've experienced so far. Everything looked and smelled and tasted and sounded so very different. I forgot to mention that we detoured on the way home past the computer lab at CIMBA. We still hadn’t confirmed any of our Saturday and Sunday plans. My colleagues had been offering a bunch of terrific ideas—from Lake Garda to Slovenia. My dad’s typical response to ideas was “It’s up to you, honey. I’m just along for the ride.” But eventually we came across a winner. My colleague Chris (another Michigander!) suggested Bolzano. It is only a few hours away by train. So that met our need to have a quick trip. It’s a small town in the Italian Alps that is more Austrian than it is Italian. So that met my dad’s desire to see a different country. And it is home to Ötzi, the 5,000-year-old ice mummy. That sealed the deal. My dad has watched several TV shows on the ice mummy and could now see him in person. So we swung by the computer lab and booked the cheapest hotel we could find that was within walking distance of the train station.
We got up early in the morning, packed our backpacks with only the bare essentials, and headed out to—where else?—the Castelfranco Veneto train station.
The Duck Was *This* Big
The sign said something in Italian to the effect of "The Biggest Duck in the World." When it comes to bamboo ducks, I'd believe it. Here I am hugging its belly. There we jumped on our train and traveled to Bolzano by way of Trent. The ride was absolutely beautiful. My dad showed me pictures to prove it. (I spent most of the time sleeping.)
We had a short layover in Trent where we got panini and strudel (a good introduction to the blending of the two cultures we were going to encounter). We also picked up a bag of cherries from the tiny farmer’s market in the center square. The highlight of Trent was seeing the “world’s biggest bamboo duck.”
Bolzano was every bit as beautiful as it was hyped to be. But from the moment you step off the train—and possibly before if you’re looking out the windows—you don’t think you’re in Italy anymore. Italian is the second language of the area. The food shifts from slow pastas served in ristorante to fast hot dogs served from sidewalk carts. The architecture shifts from simple lines and textures to ornate and filigree, and from pale earth tones to vibrant pastels. I suppose it only increased the effect as we moved from warm and sunny to cool and rainy as well.
We were lucky that we only had
Cable Cars
Our ride up in a cable car was quite fun--even if it was raining the whole time. Even through the clouds and fog the view from above was terrific. one rainy day for all of our traveling. And if it was going to rain anywhere, Bolzano was a good town for it as it didn’t foil any of our plans. We wandered the streets for a while and then tracked down the Ice Man Museum. For being a relatively small museum it was very nice. I learned more about mummies than I ever realized I wanted to know. But the one thing that really stands out to me about that museum is that we walked up one flight of steps to enter the museum. At the end of the exhibit (in which we didn’t walk up a single step), we walked down about five flights of stairs to get back to the starting point. Without realizing it, we must’ve been walking up a spiral inside of the narrow museum building. Very cool.
The next stop on our agenda was a cable car ride. We didn’t know what we were doing or where we were going. So we followed the cable car line to its starting point. But the place we walked into looked more like a private office building than a place to catch a cable car ride.
Due Birra e Thé Caldo
My dad and I hung out at this bar at the top of the cable car ride. It was a great little place with the most affordable prices in all of Italy. Total tab 4. And, of course, everything was in German (with translation to Italian). So I had to rely on my rudimentary Italian skills to translate. Eventually, we talked to a receptionist (in English) who told us what we needed to do. And for pretty cheap—maybe €4 each—we got a round trip ticket up the mountain.
The cable car ride was terrific. And there were very few people in the car with us. So that made the ride much more pleasant. We got out at the “top” (there was a much higher top to reach if we took a tram to a different cable car… but it was getting late and this was quite delightful as it was). Up there, it was extra cold and windy! We huddled under the awning at a bar and ordered thé caldo (hot tea) and two beers. Two guesses for who ordered what—and the first guess doesn’t count! One of the highlights of that stop was watching my dad have a conversation with an Austrian man about his “nice dog,” a very laidback black lab. They both carried on in their own language for several minutes. The guy didn’t speak a word of English and my
Going Down
The ride down was even more interesting than the ride up. We rode straight into a big patch of fog. At one point, we couldn't see anything but the fog. dad didn’t speak a single word that wasn’t. But they somehow made it work.
When we left the bar, we walked up and down the “main drag” for a while. Then it was time to head back down to town. On this ride, it was just the two of us in the cable car. That was extra-nice. Part way down the mountain, the car stopped on the cable. My dad got very, very quiet. In fact, he might have been holding his breath. I didn’t necessarily mind being stopped. But we were blowing around quite a bit. And I don’t think my stomach could’ve handled the swaying for too, too long. (Did I mention we were doing this ride in a rain storm?)
We did more walking around the town and settled on dinner at the hotel café. It really seemed to be the hot spot in town. We got an outside table under a big umbrella so we could enjoy the outdoors and stay dry. Nothing on the menu looked all that appealing to me. So I ordered the würstel and fries and my dad ordered salmon. When our meals came, he had paper-thin slices of cold, marinated salmon and a piece of dry toast. I had two boiled hot dogs (no buns) and french fries (no ketchup). Sad to say, my meal was the better of the two.
When we returned to the hotel following our after-dinner walk, I set my dad up on Skype and went down to the Wellness Center. It was closing in 45 minutes, but I needed to take advantage of some of the amenities available. I was “greeted” by an old naked man who was toweling off in the doorway between the men’s changing area and the check-in desk. The woman at the desk didn’t speak either English or Italian, so the old man said, “Can I help you?” Luckily when I turned around, he had put on his bikini undies. I relaxed in the whirlpool for about 15-20 minutes and then the biosauna for about the same amount of time. The Wellness Center also had a Finn-sauna, but that thing was way too hot for me (about 200+ F).
It was a great way to warm up at the end of a cold day: Cold weather, the Ice Man, and cold salmon for dinner.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.116s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 9; qc: 46; dbt: 0.0816s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb