Up in the mountains

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Dear Max and Dominic,

Last weekend Justin and I took the train up into the mountains in the north of Italy to meet some of Justin's friends from Germany. The place where we stayed was about halfway between their city and ours. This part of Europe is very mountainous and the people that live here are a mixture of German speakers, Italian speakers, and speakers of another much older language called Ladin that comes from Roman times. It felt more like Austria, southern Germany or Switzerland than Italy. Even the houses were different, as you can see from the photo. Our valley didn't have any castles, but the main one had a castle every few miles, stuck to some craggy cliff like a limpet on a rock. I reckon this wasn't a very safe part of the wolrd to live in a thousand or so years ago.

It's very calm and safe now though. Cows wander around with big cow bells around their necks, there are lots of waterfalls to gaze at, and the roads wind around from one stunningly beautiful view to another. Strangely, this part of Italy grows lots and lots of apples, even more than in Nelson: Red Delicious and Golden Delicious by the mile. I don't know how they survive all the snow and frosts in winter.

There are also apparently snakes here - poisonous vipers. I looked out for one but they were all in hiding. There were lots of snakey-looking holes in the ground but I wasn't brave enough to stick my arm into one to see if any snakes were at home. We did see lots of bright red toadstools though, which is a sure sign of gnomes, but I didn't see any of them either. Even the alpine deer were keeping themselves far away from us, which is understandable I guess because every cafe and shop seems to have a stuffed deer's head mounted up on the wall. They might have been worried I had a gun in my pack and a desire for a deer trophy in my heart.

No way!

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