Sterzing to Feltre Day 3: Schabs to St. Georg

Sunday June 16, Schabs to St. Georg via Brixen

The sound of Blasenmusik from afar this morning enticed us off route to the field south of our hotel. Apparently every 5 years, Schabs hosts a re-enactment of the second battle of Bergisel (1809), in which Tyrolean rebels eventually forced Napoleonic and Bavarian contingents to retreat. We missed the sacking of Schabs on Friday, but heard a lot of gunfire and Blasenmusik on Saturday. On Sunday morning, much of the encampment laid down their replica weapons to attend a church service in the field... 

Tsk, Bayern

Creative anachronism

After gawking for a bit, we caught up with our planned route. We passed abundant apple orchards...

...and vineyards.

Look! Blue skies!

S was much enamoured of the house shown in the center of the photo below. It was built into the ground, with skylights and stacked stone walls. From the patio, the occupants presumably had an excellent view, but from the road below, the house looked like all of the other stone walls supporting the hillside.

We descended through the vineyards toward Kloster Neustift, an Augustinian monastery established in 1142. 

Fascinating acrylic and LED art on the lawn

The organ looked surprisingly small for such a big space, but the interwebs explained that the pipes are "distributed over two cases placed on the side walls of the gallery, so that the two main facades (with curved floor plans) face each other and only the small facades on the narrow sides are visible from the main nave."

From Neustift, we followed the roiling Eisack river into Brixen. We zipped through the Altstadt, did a quick walk through St. Michael's...

...and the Dom...

...then tanked up for our steep hike up the hill in the afternoon.

Look! It's a Spar! And it's OPEN on a Sunday! What is this world coming to??? We went inside and bought a deck of playing cards, because our backpacks weren't already too heavy.

We lugged those cards up past multiple waterfalls...

...past a huge stack of logs of misc. diameters, located on the site of a former Bronze Age settlement where, perhaps, the bronze-ageians also stacked wood.

Passing through Klerant, we enjoyed spectacular views of Brixen... 

...as well as a stop in the early 15th-c. church of St. Nikolaus. It should be pretty clear by now that I like to look inside old churches when I'm hiking. They're cool and quiet, and like free mini-museums, with interesting (if largely mono-thematic) historical art and architecture.

St. Nikolaus didn't disappoint.

S noted the devil outside of the apse:

Is this an elephant?

A sea serpent:

Notice the soul of the convict to the left of Jesus leaving the mangled body and being welcomed by an angel. And notice that you can tell who the good guys are by their nose jobs.

The stones on the exterior are fake--they're painted onto stucco.

It makes me tired just thinking about this, but there's a marathon from Brixen up to the top of the Plose (Brixen's "Hausberg"--the local high peak). Elevation gain is 2,450 meters, and the record is 3 hours 22 minutes. Oof. There's also an 84 km ultramarathon route, the benefit of which, I guess, is that it's only half as steep.

Our route was steep too. The Reisebüro, as S likes to call me, chose a straight shot up the hill, for some reason I can't remember. It was strenuous, but fun, since the terrain was mostly pine needles and moss and a pebbly trickling stream. Perfect for Hobbits not wanting to be heard, assuming Hobbits don't pant audibly.

Baby pine trees

This photo makes it look flat, but it was a ~25% grade.

After about half a mile at a speedy snail's pace, we bailed when the trail fortuitously intersected with a much less steep road. We took the road more traveled, and were rewarded when we turned a corner and caught our first view of the Dolomites.

The road took us through St. Jakob and past this wooden motorcycle.

We dutifully returned to the trail near the church of St. Jakob.

After another mile of trudging, we finally tilted downward and into St. Georg, our destination for the night.

Room with a view

For dinner, we both had the most beautifully plated fried eggs and pan fried potatoes we're ever likely to encounter.

Ta da! 14 miles, 3,630 ft elevation gain. We're feeling it. 

Sterzing to Feltre Day 2: Niederflans to Schabs

Saturday June 15: Niederflans to Schabs

I'm starting with the "ta da," because this was a long, wet day. 18.75 miles, 4,250 ft elevation gain, 5,840 ft descent. That's, like, 1.1 miles of descending, which our knees say is a lot. The 4,250 ft of ascending was a lot too, but easier on the knees. The first 14 miles were from Niederflans to Schabs.

Turns out there's nowhere to dine out in Schabs, so we walked another 4.75 round trip to Mühlbach for dinner. Our Pension host was vociferously opposed to us walking anywhere for dinner--he wanted to drive us, and was disturbed that we insisted on walking--because the freeway that runs through this tiny town is very pedestrian unfriendly, but we were able to walk on bike paths most of the way to Mühlbach. (The bike paths aren't super pedestrian friendly either: we saw two different drivers pull into bike lanes because who knows why...)

Our day began by heading downhill out of Niederflans. Down...

...down...

...down.

Our next goal was to head up to Valler Jöchl (Valler Pass-let).

After turning left at the chickens, ducks, peacocks, and guinea hens, we began heading up. 

S found some wild strawberries.

Our route up briefly joined a Parcours trail for bow-and-arrow target shooting--thus the polyeurythane wolves with bullseye targets carved into their sides.

Go Pack! 🐺 

Wildflowers were abundant.

We could see Niederflans behind and below us after we passed through the village Ritzail.

Niederflans is in the middleground saddle

Above Ritzail was a small chapel with a bench in front, where we paused for a snack. The chapel interior was lovely; I'm a sucker for stars painted on ceilings.

Real marble is expensive, so it's common to see it faked with paint.

Then clouds rolled up the hill and stayed with us for the rest of the day.

We hiked up and up and up some more, eventually reaching Valler Jöchl. Jöchl is a diminutive version of Joch, meaning "pass."

The view from the pass-let:

We continued upward. Here's a view of the gondola station and restaurant en route to the peak we were heading to, Stoanamandl.

This is the season of Blasmusik (wind band music). Indeed, every season is the season of Blasmusik. Yet it still came as a surprise to hear strains wafting across the saddle in the fog. We're guessing the tubists, at least, came up by gondola rather than on foot.

At last, Stoanamandl, with it's panoramic view.

And in the distance: Dolomites!

We didn't exactly soak in the views, but we did get soaked. Having reached our highest elevation of the day, we started our long descent toward Schabs.

Perfect spot for lunch in the drizzle

Eventually we descended into Spinga, where lo, through the fog, we saw a church tower.

There, that's better...

After a few more miles and steep descent, at last we arrived at our hotel in Schabs.

Long time, no see, 1970s decor...

After being horizontal for a while, we headed to Mühlbach for a much needed pizza.

After walking back to Schabs in the rain, we were serenaded to sleep by the strains of more Blasmusik from a field near the hotel, because neither rain nor sleet nor dark of night will sway woodwind or brass musicians from their appointed rounds of ensemble playing. But more about that in the next post...