Today is really the second day, but I am going to assume that the long and tedious travel took place on Day 0. The only thing worth mentioning is that my flight got delayed by a good two hours in London Heathrow, so I arrived at 9 pm in Milan Linate and from there had to drive two and a half hours to the place I was staying for the night. In the meantime I had to learn how to handle the payment of tolls in the autostrada, and with a grateful heart sank in my pillow for some well-deserved sleep.
Today in the morning I woke up early, with the idea of doing some sightseeing around Lago del Garda, one of the most famous Italian alpine lakes. Unfortunately, for me, the shores of the lake are heavily developed with campgrounds, holiday apartments, and family attractions, so it is really hard to get down to the shore or attempt a shore walk. There were millions of tourists, traffic was heavy, and finding a parking spot was almost impossible. After a couple of hours I gave up and started on my way up the mountains, following the Adige River.
For the first 50 kilometers the road meanders slowly toward Trento climbing the very wide canyon of the Adige. The walls are formed by enormous limestone cliffs in which I thought I can see the outline of an enormous fossil reef. After Trento the canyon narrowed considerably and the road became more twisty. At noon I reached Bolzano, which appeared to be an industrial city devoid of people (today is Sunday). All restaurants were closed until the evening, but like in many other occasions a kebab shop came to my rescue.
By 3 pm I reached Ortisel, nestled between some tall mountains, which will be my center of operations for the next two days. I am now in the region of Sud Tirol, and my very expensive hotel is a very typical chalet. Like all the architecture here it has a strong Swiss influence (in fact, here everything is signaled in Italian and German, and I see many German tourists around me (also lots of Japanese tourists). On the way here I crossed some lovely vineyards, some of which hung like climbing ivy to the flanks of the steep sides of the valley.
It took me all of 5 minutes to get settled and right away I went out looking for an easy hike to warm up and start getting used to the high elevation. Nothing jumped to mind in the immediate neighborhood, but, taking advantage of a complimentary ticket for all buses, I rode the bus to Castelrotto, where they have a funicular. I didn't have time to do a trek using the funicular, but I used the afternoon following one of the labeled paths to get my legs moving and my breathing acclimated. The landscape is spectacular, with vast meadows rising all the way to the bottom of the distant cliffs (during the winter they are the snow slopes that have made the region world-famous). The Spitzbühl (1,935 m) rises its stupendous outline over the meadows, as if defying the tourist to try to climb it. I took the last bus back at 7 pm, but tomorrow I will start at 8:30 am to attempt the climb of the Bullaccia (2,174 m) (but I intend to cheat by taking a funicular almost all the way to the top, and then walking down).
A presto!
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