Tuesday – June 30

Northeastern Italy : Südtirol : Alto Adige : Alta Badia

Anyone of these words will give you an idea of where we are now.

After a 7-hour drive from Serre Chevalier via Milano, Trento and Bolzano we reached Pedraces, which is a tiny village in a string of tiny villages that stretches from near the Austrian/Italian border to Corvara. Corvara is not far from Cortina d’Ampezzo, famous for skiing, which tells you what this area is like, and it’s also the entryway to the Val Gardena, which is noted for high passes and spectacular scenery! This is the Dolomiti where the color and contour of the mountains is quite unlike the French or Italian Alps. The sides of the valleys have grass and trees growing up quite far up the slopes and one sees ski lifts everywhere. The architecture of the buildings and churches reminds me of Austria, although from time to time we see an Italian-style church. In this region – the Alto Adige – the locals speak Italian and/or German and a local dialect called Ladino. We see signs in one, two or all three languages. We had rented a little apartment that turned out to be one room but the room is big and has two balconies and a terrace, so there is much light and wonderful views. The downside is that it’s on the main road and, given the traffic, tends to be a tad noisy, especially in the mornings when we’re awakened earlier than we would like.

The area is SO GREEN! We’ve had a fair amount of cloud and rain mixed with sun, which must account for the greenness. On Wednesday we headed out for a quick look by car and were surprised not only by the beauty of the area but also by the large number of bicyclists on the roads. The roads are quite narrow and very heavily traveled by everything from huge construction vehicles down to motor scooters - passing bicycles with cars coming the other way on narrow roads is something of an adventure! It seems that we pass the bikes and the motorcycles pass us and it’s a bit like leapfrog. There appears to be numerous bicycle events here every weekend and there are far more bikes than cars. We’re accustomed to seeing bikers on the mountains of France (think ‘Tour de France’), but we’ve never seen anything like this!