A day in Italy

I had never been to Italy before, and Italy is just a hop, skip, and jump away from Nauders, so the day after Stefan's bike race, we drove 5km south, out of Austria/North Tyrol, and into Italy/South Tyrol. Most of the people I have told this to in the week since then have observed that despite being in Italy, South Tyrol is "basically Austria." The road signs are in both Italian and German, and the towns have both Italian and German names.

After driving up to the Stilfser Joch/Stelvio Pass, we headed back down the way we had come to have lunch in what we called Glurns (since we were traveling with a German speaker)--though I think Italian has the upper hand with this one, as Glorenza sounds far more musical. Glurns/Glorenza is a walled medieval town; wikipedia.de's article on Glurns, when cranked through Google Translate, states that Glurns is one of the smallest municipalities in Tyrol, second only to "the city rats mountain in North Tyrol." I take this as a reminder that while it might be smarter to read text in the original language, it's often more entertaining to use Google Translate.

A biker heading down from atop the Stelvio Pass

Glurns arcades

Glurns doorways

Glurns windows

From Glurns, we headed to Meran/Merano, which was low enough in elevation to give me a taste of what I thought Italy (versus "basically Austria") would look like, with palm trees and majestic cypresses. We wandered around the city center for a bit and found not one but two kitchen gadget stores--joy!--where I picked up three snazzy fluted ravioli cutters. A salesperson noticed that I was lingering for a ridiculous amount of time over the ravioli cutters, spinning assorted wheels and examining their edges; I was pleased to be able to explain in sufficient German that I needed the wheels for pottery, and to explain why the fancy five-cutters-in-parallel model he showed me wouldn't work for my needs. I was also pleased to realize that Italy is probably the cheapest place in the world to buy ravioli wheels.

After that exciting shopping excursion, we ended up on the Tappeinerweg, a path that rises steadily and with many switchbacks through well-tended gardens on a cliff side over Meran. Thus a day that began with snowy mountain peaks ended with prickly pear cactus blossoms.

Cactus flowers on the Tappeinerweg

View of Meran from the Tappeinerweg

We happened upon one Stolperstein on our way to dinner:

Dinner was pizza. As was the case with fondue in Switzerland, it turns out that pizza doesn't taste any more intriguing than usual for being eaten in Italy, but it was nice to have the experience. After dinner, we left northern Italy/south Tyrol for one more night in southern Austria/north Tyrol. On Tuesday, we headed north for Germany.

Nauders

While 3,000 jocks were biking the Dreilaender Giro, we spent a few hours poking around Nauders. This included eating too many Pommes (french fries) in the race tent, meandering up to Schloss Nauderberg (a castle first mentioned in historic documents in 1239, now privately owned and used as a hotel/restaurant), and saying hello to an abundance of garden gnomes on a narrow street leading back to our pension. I was inspired to remember the garden gnome Stefan and I received as a wedding present, though not sufficiently to bother finding the gnome in my mother-in-law's attic.

One of these things is not like the others

Only one of these central European fire hydrants is an award winner. Can you tell which one?

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Dreilaender Giro

The reason we left Freiburg early Saturday was to drive to Nauders, Austria, so Stefan could ride the Dreilaender Giro on Sunday. He had been training for this race for months: he joined a cross fit class in January, upped his weekly mileage, biked up and down Mt. Mitchell a few times, and rode once from Durham to Mt. Airy. He's fit and firm, despite an old disc injury that necessitates pausing to stretch his back and legs several times a day; and he certainly wasn't going to let the common cold he picked up Friday stand in his way.

The only real threat was the weather. Last week, the forecasts for Nauders' Sunday weather ranged from steady rain to thunderstorms to sleet, with predicted high temps ranging from about 48-62^oF. Of course, the forecasts for Freiburg proved not to be terribly accurate, apart from the initial 98^oF day, so we shouldn't have worried too much. Nevertheless, after four hours of sunny driving on Saturday, we encountered increasing clouds and then pouring rain about 15 minutes outside of Nauders. It wasn't looking great for Sunday morning.

Saturday evening outside our pension: a pause in the rain.

It turned out that the weather couldn't have been better: clouds early Sunday morning yielded to warm sunshine. Stefan finished the race in a little more than nine hours--7 hours 46 minutes of actual biking, with stretch breaks interspersed to protect his back.

Testosterone Central, 6:25 a.m. Sunday

Stefan waiting with the rest of the jocks

The victorious biker

Now in its 20th year, the Dreilaender Giro is a loop that runs from Nauders over the Reschen pass into Italy, through Mals and Glurns to Prad and Trafoi, up over the Stilfser Joch/Stelvio pass, down into Switzerland, over Umbrail pass, down to Santa Maria Wal Muestair, to Ofen pass, to Zernez and Unterengadin, back into Austria at Martina, then to Norbertshoehe, and finally back to Nauders. The route is 168km long, with ~3,350m elevation gain.  

The highest pass in Italy, the Stilfser Joch is one of the most dramatic and demanding ascents in the Alps. Stefan took a photo near the top of the pass:

Sunshine and switchbacks

The road was built in 1820 to connect Austria to Lombardy, which then belonged to Austria. The road has 48 switchbacks. We drove up Monday morning to admire the view and Stefan's prowess, and this is what we saw:

Brrrr

Elias was thrilled with the snow, but we were all glad Stefan had sunshine yesterday.

Freiburg wrap up

We planned far too little time in Freiburg. I taught half-day writing workshops on Thursday and Friday while Elias and my mom were tourists and Stefan met up with colleagues. Thursday evening gave us a chance to catch up with some friends, and on Friday afternoon we invited some of Elias's chums to a birthday party for the aptly-named, full-of-sunshine Solstice boy. Afterward, we walked up to the Jesuitenschloss for dinner under gathering clouds, but the sun emerged just before setting and turned the world a radiant yellow. Alas, we had to leave Freiburg early on Saturday morning, but hopefully we'll return for a longer visit next summer.

Multi-generational chess post party

Purple in the park

At the bottom of the hill before dinner

At the top of the hill after dinner

The world glowed yellow

My family glowed yellow too

Thus ended summer solstice 2013

Schauinsland

On Wednesday, we attempted to reset our internal clocks by exposing ourselves to the sun from late morning until sunset. After breakfast, Stefan went downtown to rent a bike. He then biked up Schauinsland--Freiburg's nearest tall mountain--while Elias, my mom, and I took the cable car up. To take the cable car, we had to drive to the Seilbahn station, which meant spending half an hour sitting outside our Ferienwohnung in our parked fancy schmancy rental car figuring out how to shift from park into gear. This actually required getting out the manual to learn that one needs to tweak the shifter not once but twice for every gear change and that the button one tries pushing after tweaking just once only puts the car in park. I then tried to remember rechts vor links while driving the relatively big car through narrow streets that we shared with bold drivers, daring bicyclists, and long streetcars. The rental car has a nifty feature that yells at you if it thinks you're going too fast in a construction zone or getting too close to parked cars, so I of course was grateful when we finally arrived at the cable car station near Horben. Efficient public transportation would have been faster.

My inner acrophobe has apparently moved out permanently. I experienced zero adrenaline rush riding the cable car, and when we got to the top of Schauinsland, I easily climbed the viewing tower--a first for me, yet for better or for worse, no big deal. I would have appreciated at least a smidge of panicky thrill, but oh well.

We enjoyed lunch together at the restaurant atop Schauinsland--Pommes and Flammkuchen--then hiked through woods and meadows back down to Horben for cake and coffee, with Stefan orbiting us the entire way on his bike.

Queen Anne's Lace

Mountaintop meadow

Bee on a stalk

Lichen on a stick

Studying the German bucolic (E says "buCOWlic")

Bench with a view

View with a bench

This fire hydrant...

...is a design award winner.

Things change

We're back in Freiburg for a few days, and things aren't entirely as we were expecting. First, it was almost 100^oF today--hot for Freiburg, and hotter than it's been all year in Durham. Hot.

Second, Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz is no longer the longest word in the German language. According to the UK's Telegraph, "the word--which refers to the 'law for the delegation of monitoring beef labelling,' has been repealed by a regional parliament after the EU lifted a recommendation to carry out BSE tests on healthy cattle." I'm not sure how Germans will refer to this law as history without the word, but I'm sure the Volk will work it out in due time.

Third, despite reserving a rental car two months in advance and talking with a rental company rep about how we needed a car large enough to hold Stefan's bike suitcase and four people, we were surprised today to receive a car large enough to hold Stefan's bike suitcase or four people. After much wrangling, Stefan negotiated upgrading to a larger car on Friday, the day before we need to drive the bike and four people to Austria for his 110-mile, 9000-ft elevation gain bike race. I'm not sure whether the chance to upgrade represents an improvement in German service over the past several years or not. Incidentally, the weather on race day is currently anticipated to be 50^oF in Nauders, with rain. Even compared to today's heat, I don't think that represents an improvement in the weather.

Some pics from the day:

A steam-punk bespectacled dog Wasserspeise

A dog or goat body therapist cheerfully massaging a human head Wasserspeise

Lunch at Chang Thai

Where muppet fairies sleep

Mock orange

Walking home from dinner

Sweat makes great hair-styling gel

Rose

Grape vines at 8pm