Monday, October 7
Tirolo, Bolzano, Trentino-Alto Adige / Dorf Tirol, Bozen, Südtirol
Highlight: A fantastic Biergarten lunch
Lowlight: Ann could barely walk on her injured knee
I slept a bit fitfully last evening. I suppose it is not in the cards for me to get a great night's sleep in Italy. Lying in bed, I scanned the weather forecast. It, more than anything, would govern what we would do today.
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Both Castles and Great View West up the Adige Valley
Taken from our Lunch Spot at the Biergarten Tirol |
It is supposed to rain and rain hard tomorrow and be rainy for several days, so this would be our last good chance to get out and explore on a sunny day. We walked down the hill about noon with an eye to poking about Dorf Tirol, getting some lunch, and heading by the grocery store for a few more supplies. Also it is Ann’s birthday tomorrow and I wanted to get a small cake, unbeknownst to her.
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Virginia Creeper on the Retaining Wall Outside our Apartment
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Ann’s knee was killing her from yesterday especially on the steep downhills, something I can really relate to, and the Apfelweg into the village is nothing if not steep. I took a moment to shoot a few more photos coming down into the village where the apple harvest was back in full swing after a break on Sunday. Tractors carrying bins of apples were scurrying to and fro everywhere.
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| Parrish Church of St. John the Baptist |
With no breakfast on board, our usual daily MO, Ann was hungry by the time we hiked downtown. After hobbling to the see the church, we returned to the hillside looking out at the two castles. Pros now at getting outdoor seating, we insinuated ourselves into a big table for six at the local Biergarten with great views of the Brunnenberg and Schloss Tirol. The Biergarten consists of a bunch of tables under a vine covered awning and is really a fine place to sit and while away some time.
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Biergarten Tirol am Schlossweg ("on the Castle Path'")
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| View from the Biergarten |
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| So Steep, Vineyards Have to be Terraced |
We were lucky enough to grab the last table with a really good view before the place filled up. We had ordered a couple of Hefeweizen and they had just been delivered to the table when a foursome came in looking for a table. I offered them the other four seats at our table. They were older Germans on holiday with some kind of tour or meet-up group. They all had trekking poles and wore the hiking outfit that most everyone else was wearing.
With my limited German, I could not grasp the purpose of the group and none of them spoke more than a few words of English. I tried French but that was a non-starter and so we were limited in our ability to communicate, but that didn't stop us from trying. One of the men, in typical dour German fashion, kept his head down, nursed his beer, and said not a word. The other three made efforts to be sociable.
Meanwhile, I ordered us some lunch: a plate of Speck and thinly sliced daikon, a plate that they called Tiroler antipasto; a Bauernwurst plate that included a Speckknödel; and as a treat for Ann, Schweinshaxe, roasted pork shank (Haxe), one of my favorites and an Oktoberfest specialty in Bavaria. It was advertised with fries but I saw in the fine print that you could also order it with Krautsalat, cabbage salad.
Before I could order the salad, the server said in German, “You want the salad, don’t you?” Not sure what pegged me for wanting the less touristy option other than ordering a dish that few Americans would order, but yes, I love thinly shaved young cabbage dressed with oil and vinegar and I was craving vegetables. Both dishes came with an excellent sauce made with fresh coarsely grated horseradish.
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| Tiroler Antipasto: Speck, Daikon, and Flatbread |
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Bauernwurst, Speckknödel, Sauerkraut, and Horseradish
Not as Good as the Knödel up on the Mountain |
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Schweinshaxe: Not the Best I've Ever Had
But That's Like Saying, "It's not the best bacon I've ever eaten."
Stunningly Good Cabbage Salad from Young Cabbage |
While waiting for our food to arrive, we chatted as best we could with the Germans at the table. When the most conversant of the four found out that Carter is in the Army, he said that was also in the service as a member of an F-104 crew. I gathered he was not a pilot, but I couldn’t decipher enough German to truly understand his role. He then pulled out a 1965 photo of himself and another guy standing in uniform in front of an old Starfighter. Clearly he was
Lutfwaffe. This was a touching moment for Ann and me.
About then, they asked for their checks and got up to do whatever it was that they were visiting Dorf Tirol for. Soon after, we invited a younger couple to sit with us. They too were Germans on holiday from Stuttgart and younger, say 50ish, Christian and Heike. Christian works for Mercedes; no surprise as their HQ is in Stuttgart. I teased him about BMWs and he allowed that they are “fine cars.” You would not have got that admission from a Mercedes employee of my generation.
At one point, they ordered a plate of Kaiserschmarrn, also a typical dish that I wanted Ann to taste while here. They offered her a bite of the dessert that is a mound of bits of sweet pancake around a bowl of applesauce for dipping. You make this dish by putting pancake batter in a pan and then as it sets on the bottom, cut it and lift the pieces, flipping the uncooked sections over. A more common, if less traditional, means is to cook the pancake until it is nearly done and then pull it apart with two forks.
We had a great time chatting in English and German about all kinds of things and the afternoon sped by. It was getting on 16:00 and I needed to hit the grocery store about four blocks away for some supplies, so I excused myself and left Ann chatting away. The new besties would take a bunch of photos in my absence.
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| I Left Ann Chatting away with Heike and Christian |
The very small store was pretty well stocked and I got most everything on my list including salad greens, wine, pasta, and a little surprise for Ann’s birthday. I was looking for Paracetamol or Ibuprofen for Ann's knee because we’ve used all I had in my first aid kit. No luck; I don’t know whether you have to get it at a pharmacy in Italy or whether this store doesn’t stock any OTC meds.
Groceries stuffed into my daypack, I walked back to the Biergarten to find Ann sitting on the stone wall overlooking the Brunnenberg Castle. In spite of her aching knee and in spite of my protests to the contrary, she started back up the trail towards Farmerkreuz with me. Finally, she threw in the towel and let me take her over to the main street where I left her at a bus stop and continued walking up the steep hill to fetch the car to get her.
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| Waiting for my Return |
The hill was steep, but I'm in good shape and I managed to get the car with no issues. While I was in the village picking Ann up, a dump truck passed us and headed up the hill on the one-lane road. Quickly when driving back to the house, we caught up with the dump truck which had to be heading to the house under construction next to ours.
Going up requires a very acute and steep lefthand turn onto our road, a narrow turn that I could just barely negotiate in the Jeep. There is no way that the dump truck could make this turn. I was amazed to see the driver pull beyond the turn and then back the 650 meters up the twisty mountain road to his destination as I followed him going forward. The skill that it takes to steer that big machine in reverse up a steep and twisting singletrack road is incredible.
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| Bushels of Kiwis on a Vine over the Parking Trellis at farnhaus |
Sometime after dark, I made us a plate of fresh egg pasta filled with prosciutto crudo. I dressed the pasta with pesto. This filled pasta that I got at the store seemed to be fluted-edge rounds folded like tortellini, a shape that I would call agnolotti. The package did not clear up the name of said pasta, stating merely
pasta ripiena (“stuffed pasta”), not helpful for those who like to know the names of what they are eating. We opened a bottle of Sangiovese to go with it and had a quiet supper in our room. I wanted to eat outside on the deck, but it was too chilly with little but growing cloud cover to hold in the warmth of the day.
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| Meran in the Early Night |
Before heading to bed, I reread the forecast for the rest of the week, hoping against hope that the weathermen in Italy are as hit or miss as those in the US. I was hoping that the forecast that indicated days of rain in the future had been revised especially for Ann's birthday tomorrow. I hoped in vain as I read the dispiriting news. With two days of our vacation already fully rained out plus a few more days curtailed because of rain, neither of us was in the mood for more rain.
I went to bed trying to be hopeful, but had already bought supplies to cook her birthday dinner at the apartment the next day if it were raining to the point that we did not want to drive down to the village with little visibility on super slick steep roads. Tomorrow would tell.
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