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| the colosseum at night! |
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| my Polish pals @ the Spanish steps! |
Ciao belli amici!!
It's been a moment since my last blog out, I've been on the move!
I had a friend visiting from Seattle & we had a magnificent adventure in some places I hadn't yet been to. It was awesome to spend time with a friend, thanks Kim!! We met in Roma & hopped a train up to Verona, a lovely city! Fair Verona is, of course, famous for being the setting of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet. Even though we didn't spend a lot of time there we found it to be charming.
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| Dante Alighieri |
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| piazza in Verona, the perfect spot to have a pizza & wine :) |
From Verona we rented a car & headed north to the Dolomites! A region I had been anxious to do some hiking in! Our first stop was the town of Trento, which was German feeling & cute. Very Tirolean! The culture, architecture, people, accent are all very different here with a distinct German/Austrian/"Tyrolean" feel.
Zone maps for orientation: !
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| way up north! we were perfecting our german style "hallo" because no one was speaking italian |
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here you can zone in on Trento & the Gruppo di Brente to the left, also Bolzano (Germantown)
it was all seeming a lot like Leavenworth in Washington :) |
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| super bike friendly in this region. |
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| Trento's neptune fountain |
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| lovely frescoes on the old buildings |
And then... we were off to to the region of the Brenta Dolomites in search of some hiking/trekking/excursioni! It was gorgeous!! We arrived sort of in the off season. It is busy in summertime for hiking & then in wintertime for skiing but, in late September was pretty quiet with many things closed.
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| small mountain town of Fai di Paganella where we rented some gear to do the Via Ferrata! |
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| small town & lake of Molveno |
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| the day we set out for our adventure it was... raining! typical. we waited it out in a rifugio for a while, then fortified ourselves with some grappa & headed out into the rain. luckily we were able to purchase these handy ponchos. |
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| on the way up, in the midst of the clouds |
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| after spending a night @ rifugio Pedrotti (where there was a super fun atmosphere with lots of germans & good food & drink) we braved the cold morning to start our hike. |
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| the cute rifugio |
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| they send supplies up & down the mountain using this clever "tram" |
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| the rifugio & beginning of trail |
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| let's go! these trails were apparently used by early alpinists & then soldiers used them to travel through the mountains during wars. crazy! |
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| lots of scary ladders to climb & descend |
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| you wear a harness & clip carabiners to this metal line for safety |
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| clipped in! |
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| it was shady & chilly to start, we were rewarded with some stellar views! |
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| we were loving it!!!!!!!!! |
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| this portion was especially amazing! |
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| oh man, these ladders.... |
So, we did the famous & popular Bocchette Centrali & then descended on a new & more difficult route... Via Spellini. It was full of these long & nerve wracking ladders! At first I was quite frightened but, after doing a few, became a professional. :)
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| there were actually some tricky downclimbing moves to do in hiking boots. exciting! |
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| ladders!!!!!! |
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| looking up to where our routes were |
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| and on the descent, looking up to the Brenta group where we were. Mission successful! We were exhilarated! |
We continued to journey through the apple orchards of the Alto Adige. Golden delicious apples were EVERYWHERE! We headed to the Alpe di Siusi, the largest high alpine meadow in Europe!
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| yum! |
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| taking the gondola up to the meadow |
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| and here we have lovely weather for our hike through the meadow, very quaint! |
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| cute cows everywhere, we fed this one grass. |
Then we hit Bolzano, where we were dying to see OTZI the ice man. Do you remember this guy? He was discovered in the ice back in 1991 by some hikers & turned out to be 5300 years old!!!!!!! Wow! So, he is preserved (ice mummy style) in the museum here. He was an ancient nomad & was found with all of his backpacking stuff which was fascinating. Crazy to see how advanced his ancient gear was! We loved it. After Bolzano we headed back down south to Lago di Garda.
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| market, Bolzano |
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| red currants |
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| more bikes in Bolzano |
We had a cultural heritage day & explored the Pieve di Bono area northeast of Lago di Garda, searching for Kim's family roots! It was fun & a beautiful zone full of forests, rivers & small mountain towns.
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| Pieve di Bono! |
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| there was a country fair going on with children showing their cows, super cute |
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| and a mouthwatering array of local cheeses.... |
The next day we headed to Vicenza to see some Palladian architecture. Vicenza is a peaceful & nbeautiful city!
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| yummy macchiato |
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| i love cannoli |
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| massive troughs of olives :) |
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| another food fair going on. prodotti tipici everywhere for our eating pleasure. |
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| la burrata!!! an outer shell of solid mozzerella with an inner core of soft cream and mozzerella, yum yum. |
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| the courtyard of teatro olimpio in Vicenza |
After our Vicenza stop we were off to Padova, home of famous churches & a historic university where Gallileo once taught! We had hoped, in particular, to see some famous frescoes by Giotto but, typically, the chapel was closed that day. Fortunately we were able to view some posters of the frescoes conveniently located in our "youth" hostel. :) I like to call something like this, seeing the art in the gift shop or on a youth hostel wall the "poor man's tour". So, we hung out in the park & toured the city. I loved Padova! With it's young, student population it had the feel of a real city full of real Italians rather than tourists.
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| Padova!!!!! |
And, finally, we returned our rental car to fair Verona & after resolving some train complications we were on our way (via Milano & Genova) to Cinque terre on the Ligurian coast. We found ourselves in the charming coastal town of Riomaggiore. More on this next time, I have some blog catching up to do!
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| Riomaggiore by night |
Right now, I am on my own again, continuing my farm volunteering. This time in the Valle d'Aosta region in the very northwest of Italy. It has been a bit cold & rainy but beautiful so far. I am just below Mont Blanc, in the Italian Alps. A glorious mountain! I am going to set out on a hike right now as we are experiencing some sunshine!!! I'll be here for a couple of weeks & will post again shortly.
By the way, I just read a really great book full of narrative adventure & Austrian history, the Little Book by Selden Edwards. Excellent if you like historical fiction type stuff.
And, a note for my close pals who are always having "FOMO". It turns out that FOMO is an international phenomenon! People everywhere from South Africa to Ireland & Australia have all been experiencing FOMO for a few years! And to think I thought we invented it!! (Fear Of Missing Out) (I have it constantly!!!) :)
Sending you all hugs & love from Italy!
xo
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