The weather continues to be fine, no rain but very high temperatures - not as high as we are reading about in France, but really hot for sightseeing, and insufferable when there is the addition of luggage to accompany us. I tried Uber to get our transfer to Avis Downtown Parma, and they wanted 67 Euro ($NZ134) for the 4.2 km trip. Bloody pirates are still around here too! The new app FreeNow I downloaded in Greece said "not available here", so we checked out the bus option. That was fine, about a 15 minute walk which also provided the morning coffee, and then the No 7 bus for 10 minutes, all that for 4 Euro 80, which was about the same as the coffee stop, and a lot better than 67 Euro.
Our car is a 1L Renault Clio 6 speed manual, which the key describes as white but it's actually jet black. Fortunately we were looking for the rego in the car park, not the white colour. Then the adventure started. The route? Parma to Bolzano via Caldaro.
We had decided not to take the A1 highway option, but a poor choice about 200m after we set off had us on the on ramp to the A1 rather than the on ramp to the SS343. The A1, built in the 60's, designated Highway of the Sun and running between Milan and Naples is Italy's longest highway at over 700 km. Our food tour guide had described it as a carpark. He was right, and we were glad to finally get off it at Modena and onto the A 22 the highway north. We still had lots of traffic and endless columns of heavy trucks though.
At San Michele all'Adige we turned off the toll road and headed up into the hills. The hillsides are fully planted, mainly with apples, and this was unchanged as we climbed away from the valley. The amount of horticulture is quite staggering. Some grapes also but in this area heavily focussed on apples.
The roads are narrow and windy and generally traffic is pretty well-behaved. The descent from the hills into Caldaro showed us about 20 sharp hairpins, fortunately most of the cyclists were doing the uphill climb so we didn't have them rocketing past as we descended.
The Caldaro wine museum was just over the road from our hotel so we visited there before we resumed the drive. The museo is well done; there are some massive wine presses on show and some very well preserved barrels, tools and other commentary on the various aspects of the industry in the area. On a walk round town, a look over any fence is likely to show extensive grape plantings that still form a part of village life.
It was a fairly short drive to Bolzano, back on the A 22 with the trucks and the traffic. The really interesting (read challenging) bit was trying to locate our car parking location entry, once we reached Bolzano. We got right to the door of the apartment, in a pedestrian zone, but spent quite a bit of character-developing time trying to locate the parking. The GPS is not always as smart as it thinks. Language, traffic, roadworks and time-based traffic exclusions, tend to complicate some of its advice. but we couldn't do this trip without a car.
Bolzano has wonderful shopping for clothes, shoes, kitchens and it absolutely excels for knives. We visited the best ever knife shop. Didn't visit but were impressed by the men's hat shop. Such specialisation!
There is a big cathedral in the main square (under which our car is parked). We haven't yet visited.
We took the funicular from downtown up to SopraBolzano. It's what the locals do on a Sunday to have lunch and escape the heat. Views were spectacular, and interesting to see the extent of the vineyards crawling up the very steep slopes beneath us. It's pretty impressive to see the way they have utilised this steep, difficult terrain. We had intended to walk and see the views, but there wasn't lots of shade, the temperature was 35 degrees, and the houses were there before us so the views were minimal.
The museum has remnants of his animal skin clothes, loin cloth, sandals, leggings, his bow and arrows, quiver and a knife and axe. His stomach contents showed he had just eaten a meal of chamois and goat before he was killed. It's amazing that all this could be gleaned, and it has also changed some of the historical views on when particular technologies were first used. The photograph is of a model created by scientists based on their research. But we were actually able to see his mummy and his clothing and weaponry. Hard to believe it is actually over 3500 years old. Understandably no photography is allowed.
Later in the day we found a historic pub that focussed on beers and reflected more of the Austrian heritage of the area than the Italian.
A large part of my interest in this area, and this part of the trip, is the production of cheese in these high alpine valleys, as well as the production of wine. Some of the varieties of grapes are the same as the Alsace area, on the western side of the Alps, but I was surprised to find that Cabernet Sauvignon is also grown in this area. We know this variety does particularly well in Australia, but this is the most un-Australia like countryside and climate that you'd come across.
For the cheese part of the expedition we set out for Vandoies to visit Capriz, a goat cheese manufacturer. The 80 km trip took us north towards Austria and then east towards Cortina d'Ampezza, where the last Winter Olympic Games was hosted.
The Capriz visit started with their museum. This was a good history of the Company and its manufacturing process and the goat milk industry in the area. Some excellent information on the processing of different cheeses. You may be surprised to know that goats are much more efficient milk producers and feed converters than dairy cows! We tasted some very nice soft cheeses and bought some Erbius Krauterkase cheese to add a bit of variety to our lunches. This is a hard cheese made with a combination of goat and cow's milk.
They had a very nice shop with their cheeses and others, but we are running out of days to eat anything we buy. So we enjoyed the break, and watched the thunderclouds forming up to deliver us a break from the still intense heat. Stunning views of the peaks in the distance.
We were in the car and heading to Cortina by the time the rain actually started. This part of the day was purely about the scenery and keeping the car on the road over several passos that challenged us on the way home. We drove from valley to valley, up across the passes. The three main passos were Falzarego 2105 m, Pordoi 2239 m, Costalunga 1745 m. Those don't seem very great heights but the hairpin bends and the quantum of them were amazing. As we drove through the passes the arid dentine peaks were still high above us at heights of up to 3200 m. The Clio is a 1.0 L with a manual gearbox, so there was a lot of activity going on with the driving. Concentration was required, the motorbike hordes would come up from behind quite quickly and fairly constantly. The buses also required careful management, especially on the haipins.
The drive was a great experience; the little towns had many amazingly ornate hotels/guesthouses, ski lodges with every room/balcony sporting flower boxes with massive displays of flowers. Every place has two names: one German, the other Italian. Makes reading signs extra challenging!
Our arrival back into Bolzano was really easy, straight into Parcheggio Piazza Walther, and then time for a beer.
While we have done plenty of walking around town, today we decided to take the 'Historical and Cultural Tour' around the town, to appreciate some of the historical background.
Piazza Walther is the main square for the town, and it's had a few renamings since it was built in 1808 by Maximillian of Bayern who not unreasonably named it after his good self. Then it became Johannesplatz named after the Austrian Archduke. In 1901 Walther von der Vogelweide got the guernsey. So it has not only the name of this medieval musical poet, but also a very grand statue of him in the central fountain.
The cathedral on the piazza is Gothic style with origins back to the 6th century, but it wasn't completed until 1420. It is well worth a view for the frescos art and just the superb achitecture.
Just around the corner the Dominicans have a church and cloister, again plenty of art and frescoes, especially in a side chapel dedicated to San Giovanni. Some of these friezes were quite graphic.
The last of the churches was the Franciscan church and cloister. We skipped the Capuchin Church, but all of these buildings have some amazing art, frescos and overall design.
The shopping galleries in this town are quite something; there are two long streets with lots of upmarket names, tucked in under the porticos which provide plenty of shade and I guess shelter from snow and ice in winter. Memories of the past like a fresco of the merchants' counting house are mixed with the expensive gloss.
Piazza del Erbe has a daily market, mostly fresh fruit, vegetables and flowers, but also dried fruits, nuts and spices. Good to see all that stuff, but unfortunately we aren't going to be carting that home.
We caught a bus to Muri-Gries, a winery inside the town, but still with some remnant vines around the facility. The vineyard was set up by the order of St Augustine and purchased by Benedictine monks who arrived from Switzerland in 1845. Convent, winery and vineyards - a great package that continues to today.
They still make their traditional Santa Maddalena and Lagrein wines, with the former being made from an adjacent small vineyard. The Lagrein we found a bit rustic to the palate, and it's a red that is traditionally chilled for serving. That's all a bit of a challenge to the palate. But the Reserve Lagrein was delicious. The Santa Maddalena was also a lovely wine and their Pinot Nero (Noir) had just been judged the best in Italy. It was a good tasting and it also provided a nice red for us to celebrate Georgia's success in her Semester 1 exams. She passed the lot and that was great news.
The following day we visited another winery, Ansitz Waldgries, on the other side of town, again tasting some whites, but also their traditional varieties. They do a reserve selection of their Santa Maddalena grapes called Antheos, and we bought a couple of those to take on to Sweden which is coming up fast on us. The estate here dates back to the 13th century, and has been managed by the Plattner family since the 1930s.
It was good to be able to use public transport, free with the provided Bolzano card, as both wineries were not more than a 10 minute trip by bus.
Our final sortie for Bolzano, was a short trip back into the hills. This took us first to Castelrotto, a popular walking area, and one covered in ski runs in the winter. There is a bit more pastoral farming here, stock still housed all year round, but lots of grass grown and harvested mechanically.
Then we stopped at Ortisei, a town famous for woodworking, but also a very popular walking, biking area in summer and of course skiing in winter. It was crowded with tourists and the gelato shop queues were long on what was a very hot day.
For our last night in Bolzano we dined at Voegele, a recommendation for a local food experience. There weren't queues, but all the outdoor tables were full. We had booked so we were fine. Ann opted for the veal schnitzel and potato salad. Mine was the beef goulash with bacon dumplings. Both very good meals and the wine was also local, a chardonnay from a vineyard on the valley close to the A 22, the road from Modena to Bolzano, that we'd driven on the first Renault day. The wine was lovely.
It's a relatively long drive to Bergamo if you go via the Stelvio Pass, five and a half hours according to Google Maps, so we organised ouselves for an early pack, and planned to depart after a coffee in Walther Piazza at opening time 7.30 am. That all worked well and it was a pretty smooth departure. As there are so many options to get to our destination, we staged the GPS for several towns to ensure we got the trip we wanted. Given its own choice, the car GPS would have taken us 'fastest route', but an A22-A1 combo, wasn't going to deliver what we'd planned.
The short trip to Merano took us up a new valley, lots of apple and grape plantings and the odd castello on the adjacent hills. Good scenery with the spectacular saw-toothed mountain backdrop. We haven't tired of those views yet. We've commented on the fruit growing before and this area of Italy, South Tyrol, produces about 50% of the country's apple crop, around 18 000 hectares planted producing some 900 000 tonnes annually. The fruit is handled by a massive cooperative, that controls the processing, storage and sale of this huge crop.
The region, based around Bergamo and the mountains to the north, also claims to be the cheese capital of Italy. The mountain pastures provide an opportunity for making many of the cheeses in the summer months only.
Our next waypoint for the trip was Spondigna, the turn-off to Passo Stelvio, and this was one of the reasons we initially decided on a stay in this part of the world. We thought it would be a good idea to go into Spondigna for a coffee, but that proved not to be the case as we ended up on another road heading for an entirely different Passo and couldn't find a coffee. We did find a road to put us back onto the road to Stelvio, and that road did generate a coffee stop opportunity. The owner's 10 year old son practised his English on us with big smiles from his very proud mother.
Stelvio Pass is the highest paved road in the Eastern Alps and is frequently a stage in the Giro d'Italia, one of the cycling enduros before the Tour de France. It has 48 hairpins on the northern side and 27 on the southern side. This has been an access route since the the Middle Ages and has been used by all manner of transportation through the ages. It's the highest passo in Italy, and Jeremy Clarkson has called it the greatest driving road in Europe. There was still snow in the high mountains, and spectacular views as we approached the tops.
In a 1.0 car with a six speed gearbox, it was a pretty busy drive. The hairpins are all individuals and on the way up the north side, there is pretty much zero visibility on what exactly is around each corner. Diving 101 says be in the correct gear before you go into the corner, however at very low speeds, with sharp uphill turns that can change very quickly in gradient, a drop down into 1st gear was often required.
I did have the odd "was this a good idea" thought through the first 48 hairpins. The most stressful bit of it though were the many oncoming drivers, often in the smaller cars, who were reluctant to move adequately to the right for passing. The motorbikes were even more challenging. There were plenty of them, travelling 20-30 km/hr quicker than cars, overtaking frequently, and hogging the white line where it existed, or the centre of the road where it didn't. Plenty of cyclists as well, often slowing cars because of oncoming traffic.
It was however an abso-bloody-lutely spectacular drive, and the scenery of the moutains and the snow was a truly superb bonus.
The summit was crowded, especially motorbikes and cars. Time for a break before the descent and a well done moment!
On the way down the southern side, the cyclists had their revenge. They were frequently travelling faster than we were.
Not very far below the summit was a dairy farm, cows out in the mountain pasture, very picturesque! However driving a milk collection truck up there every day would be a really challenging job.
The pass was a confrontation point for Italian and German Forces in WWI, with a memorial there to commemorate events. The Italians were triumphant and hence own the pass!
From Bormio, the GPS wanted to take us west on the fastest route to Bergamo, but we took the eastern option, to keep our powder dry for our sightseeing opportunities from Bergamo.
This decision delivered us yet another passo. As we departed the valley floor there was extensive planting of Nebbiolo grapes on the hillsides above us, much of it new. So that particular part of the industry is undergoing growth or a large vineyard refurbishment programme. The plantings are small, on drystone terraces up steep banks.
The last part of our drive to Bergamo was through torrential rain, with thunder, lightning and some pretty solid hail. We didn't see a lot of the countryside but were happy to be in a nice warm car. We arrived at our accommodation after seven and a half hours of driving, but very happy campers.
Our accommodation provided secure undercover parking, and that makes life a bit easier. Our major sortie from Bergamo was a trip into the mountains above Bergamo to taste some more cheeses. Branzi was the tour destination, travelling the valley floor and the mountain sides, no Passos today, but plenty of tunnels along the route. Building roads in this part of the world must be very expensive.
The great sightseeing available makes for slow travel, and I frequently pull over to let the fast traffic go on ahead. We passed through San Pellegrino, a small town in a narrow valley, dominated by a huge factory and dozens of bright red trucks parked in an elaborate elevated parking building. This is the origin for much or maybe all, of the world's San Pellegrino bottled water.
We dined up in the old town, Alta Bergamo, eating more traditional local food. First a lovely tasty cheeseboard, with Branzi cheeses. Then we both sampled the veal-wrapped sausage, accompanied by a small quiche. Very tasty, but I think that one will probably remain local to Bergamo. We braved the local bus for this short trip up the hill to the Venetian-built, fortified old town which we will explore tomorrow morning before our short trip over to Milan.
The most impressive part of the city are the adjacent Piazzas Vecchio and Duomo
The Duomo, the Cathedral of Bergamo, is very ornate in every way, art, frescoes, side altars - it is quite stunning.
Then just 40 metres away is a whole complex of equally as elaborate places of worship.The Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, also very ornate, as is the adjacent Colleoni Chapel and right next door to that Il Bernareggi Museum and Baptistery. It's an impressive precinct of places of worship.
But apart from this there are plenty of narrow mediaeval streets, fountains, interesting sights and views!
The afternoon was a leisurely transfer to Milan Lanate Airport for an overnighter and a short flight to Sweden tomorrow.
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