E5 Stage 11: From Austria to Italy... In the rain

Zwieselstien, Austria to Bolzano, Italy

Sunday, July 28

We enjoyed a buffet style breakfast which included all the regular stuff we normally eat for breakfast. After checking out of our room, we ran into two guys from Germany who were also on the E5 route.  They had seen us at the restaurant with the musicians and they stayed in the same hotel that we had. Their names were. We talked about the routes and the weather for the day. There was rain forecasted in the afternoon, however, they said the lady at the hotel claims that if it was windy, it wouldn't be a problem.  We were debating whether or not we should risk the rain or take another day at this nice hotel.  We decided to risk the rain and if needed, we could hitchhike where the Trail and road intersected.  

We left the safety of the hotel, went downtown, took a left, and started our morning with an uphill walk.  It's how we started every morning, for over a month.  Some people sleep in during the summer, we walked up hill.  That's just how it went.

It was windy, as we climbed up a dirt service road.  And cloudy.  Our hiker senses were throwing up red flags.  We had seen this before.  We keep climbing up alongside the left mountain in te valley.  We came over a lip an were almost blown over by the wind.  We were walking up a valley that had turned into some sort of wind tunnel and it was blowing around us intensely.  We looked down a gorge at a beautiful 3-tiered waterfall.  We crossed the river further up and noticed we were hiking parallel to a road.  

We crossed the road (don't ask why) and continued along a stream, with dark clouds and wind surrounding us.  It hasn't rained, until it started.  A light drizzle, slowly increasing into the inevitable.  We got our rain gear on and decided it was time to hitch hike.  The wind and rain increased-- we didn't have time to write out a sign.  I put out my thumb to the first car I saw and they pulled over.  

It was a van belonging to a young Austrian couple, Werner and Sonia, who took pity on us.  We climbed in and thanked them continually.  We were only miles from the pass, Timmelsjoch, however, we were thankful to enjoy it in the safety of shelter.  

We crosses over from Austria into Italy down a long steep mountain road.  Werner was also a iPhone/iPad photographer, stopping along the way to take pictures.  We needed to get to Bolzano, Italy, however, they could only take us part of the way, which was great.  

They dropped us off in a town at the bottom of the valley and we said our farewells.  We went to the fork in the road, which would take us to our destination, and thumbed for a ride.  The rain had let up, but as we waited started up again, slowly at first, until we found ourselves running with packs on backs through a noisy storm.  We headed towards the first building we could find, which happened to be a pizzeria.  We decided it was a good time to eat. Dad order a picante spaghetti and I had a Scillonian pizza.  It was so good! Our first of many Italian pizzas.  

After we had eaten and waited for the rain to stop, dad made another sign and asked around the restaurant if anyone was going to Bolzano.  We found a younger couple, _______, who would take us!  However, the trick was, he owned a lifted, canvas covered jeep, with very small back seats.  But we climbed in anyway, just as it started to rain again.  As we drove down the road, visibility was limited because of the onslaught of constant water drenching the windshield.  The slow traffic made it difficult for our driver to maneuver.  Eventually, the valley opened up, the rain ceased, and we had a peaceful drive into Bolzano, Italy.

Going from Austria into Italy, I expected a drastic change in culture, however, the region of Italy we had come to was calle SulTryl, which only became part of Italy after World War I.  There was thousands of years of Austrian history and culture in this region, and they didn't stop being Austrian, even after being taken over by Italy.  Which means, throughout this region there is a contrast of cultures, the traditionally German speaking Tryolian and the more modern Italian speaking culture.  It seems as though there was no animosity between the two, people just post names, stores, menus, and newspapers in German and Italian.  We saw this when went to restaurants where they served traditional German dishes, as well as Italian cuisine.

We said goodbye to the young couple after they dropped us at the city center.  We walked to the tourist office in the downtown square of Bolzano.  It was strange being in a big city again, the sights of concrete and crowds, the smells of gasoline and food vendors, and the constant droning of mechanical and populated noise pollution.  We felt out of place.  And hot!  And yet, seeing the Austrian and Italian architecture and cultures together, as well as the not so distance Dolomite mountain ranges in the background, helped us feel a little better.

We asked the tourist assistant about cheap rooms and she said there were no rooms available in the whole city!  Where were we going to sleep?!  She did mention, that there were small towns in the hills right outside of Bolzano, which we could get to by train.  We asked for the hotel catalog and went outside to problem solve.  We looked through the catalog.  We circle the hotel by 3 criteria:

1. Cheapness

2. Wifi

3. Included a public transport card (The Ritten Card would give us free access to bus, train, cable cars, museums, and other city discounts.)

We called the city of Oberbolzano's tourist office and the had also mentioned that many of the hotels were books.  So I circled all the relevant hotels narrowed it down to 6 out of about 60.  We started calling one at a time and found one with a vacancy.  It was a little more expensive than we planned , but better than sleeping on the streets.  

After a small cone of gelato (Italian ice cream is amazing), we got directions to the cable car.  We rode it far up above the city of Bolzano to the small town of Oberbolzano.  It's a small town surrounded by rolling hills and farmland.  From there we boarded a small train for 10 minutes to Lichtenstern, an even smaller community of hotels and homes.  We walked up a short forested hill, across a pasture road, and along hotels nestled in trees and bushes and pastures.  We finally can upon our hotel, Hotel Südtirolerhof.  A 3 story cottage, family owned, ad a really nice looking.  

There we had a room and bathroom to ourselves with very fancy bed decore.  After showering, we fired up the pocket stove dad had and made a dehydrated meal of chicken noodles.