September 20, 2003
I didn't sleep very well last night. I don't know why except that I was thinking about when I get home. I got up about 8:30 when I heard Laurie turn on the stove. I can hear when the stove gets started because it's gas and there is an electric switch to turn it on. It clicks when you push the button. It was my sign to get up. When I got up I felt like I had been through a battle. My body wasn't sore from the hiking, but just from tossing and turning all night.
After breakfast we headed down to the center about 11:15. We wanted to get some information from the tourist office. Come to find out it was closed on Saturdays. I then checked the store to find out when that closes for the day. It was closing at noon. I guess anything we needed we can get down in Bolzano. That was where we were going to hike for the day.
So we started to hike down to Bolzano. We had a hard time finding the correct trail and had to back track a couple of times. We finally found the correct trail and set off going down. The trail was good until we got to the road. The road was very steep and narrow and also winding. Cars would drive up this road and we had to make sure we could step off the side. They couldn't see us until they were right on top of us.
We made it down to the town where it was flat. The bus stop was right there. The problem was, we didn't have a bus ticket. We looked in the cablecar station. It was closed. We asked the bus driver and he didn't know where we could get one. Laurie asked if he could give us a ride to the center and we would get tickets and give it to him. He relented after awhile. The bus driver was sitting at the stop for a few minutes. There was an older woman on the bus. She must have had a multiple bus pass, because she handed it to us so we could use it. We gave her two euros in exchange for it. She could speak a little English. People are so willing to help. That is what has been so nice about traveling.
Now that we got the bus taken care of, we were wondering about the cablecar. We weren't sure if it was running today and neither one of us wanted to walk back up the steep trail to San Genesio. We knew that there is a bus to go there, so we checked it out. There is only one bus that runs and it was in about three hours. That would give us plenty of time there. We bought our tickets for it.
We roamed around the streets. We went into the grocery market and picked up a few things. We bought a slice of pizza for lunch and of course had ice cream later. I think I have had ice cream almost everyday since I have been in Italy.
There were some tents setup with exhibitors. There were men who were doing wood carving, pottery, and weaving. We can only look. We don't have room in our packs for anything, plus it would be too heavy.
We caught the 17:10 bus. They use military time every where in Europe. We had a nice ride up the road on the sides of the hill. It was about 9 kilometers up. We could lookdown the hills and into the village. Every inch of space was filled with vineyards or apple orchards. I wondered how many grapes it takes to make a bottle of wine. It seems they make wine everywhere we travel; New Zealand, Germany, France, Italy, Switerland, Austria.
We were dropped in the center and we still had our climb up to out apartment. We got in about 18:00. For the most part, I just relaxed, cooked dinner, ate, and watched Law and Order in Italian. I fell asleep on the couch.
September 21, 2003
Laurie and I started hiking about 9:30. We were hiking to this area Marion, from the tourist information, told us about. There was to be a festival going on.
Part of the hike was the same area we hiked the first day. I finally found where the "P" trail goes that I was trying to get to the other night.
We got to Tomaneggen. This is a little village. People were driving up here and parking their cars. From here, the walk to the festival was another 20 minutes. The festival was spread over acres of pastures and there were stations set-up about 5-10 minutes away from each other. There were about ten stations and each station served some type of main dish, salad, desserts, and of course beer, wine, coffee, and soda.
Even though we are in Italy, we are in the German part of Italy and they are serving German meals. At one station Laurie and I had these things that were the size of snowballs, white and mushy like. They were called zwoa kaskned with butter and cheese. At least that is what I think they were called. We have a difficult time communicating. Occasionally we did find someone that spoke English. At some of the stations they had people playing accordians or there would be a few people playing other instruments. The men would wear typical Barvarian dress. That is shorts with suspenders. The shorts are usually leather and they would have knee-hi socks on. They also wore hats, but I can't think of the name of them. They are narrow and have a feather in them.
While I was walking from station to station I heard a sound that sounded like a starting gun. It was men showing off their talents with bull whips. Laurie told me that it makes the noise because the whip travels faster than the speed of sound.
Lots of people were roaming around along with the cows and horses. The horses are a tan color with blonde manes and they are called Haflinger and are a trademark of the area. There were quite a few young foals. They didn't seem to be bothered by all of the people.
I had noticed some one put a bucket full of salt in a tree stump. The cows and horses were licking the salt.
Laurie and I tried other food delicacies such as weiner schnitzel and straubn. Straubn is like a funnel cake at home. It is dough dripped through a funnel in a crisscrossing way in hot oil.
