A Visit to Vipiteno / Sterzing

 

Between the Jaufenpass which we had just passed and the Brennerpass which forms the border between Italy and Austria and is one of the principal passes of the Eastern Alpine range lies the small town of Sterzing (German) or Vipiteno (Italian). Since we're still in the autonomous province of Südtirol, you hear more German here than Italian.

The community of Vipiteno only has a population of about 7000 - 8000, but because of its location between the Jauffen- and Brennerpass it has been an important trading town for centuries. In 14 BC a Roman fort was built in this location, and in 1182 the name Sterzing was first established. It experienced its strongest boom in the 15th century with the start of silver mining in the region.

Many buildings along the main pedestrian zone date back to that time, including the Zwölferturm (Torre delle dodici) which was built in 1468 - 1472. It is 46 meters tall and therefore the tallest building in the town and also its landmark. It got its name - twelve tower - because its noon ringing of the bell was calling the people to lunch.

I especially liked the gate.

We stopped in this town for one main reason - gelato. We weren't disappointed.

We strolled along the pedestrian zone, Kaefer and I went into some of the stores and each of us bought one of the bells that the cows in the Alps wear around their necks. These, of course, were much smaller bells, but quite cute. Whenever I look at it I'm thinking of Südtirol.

Since this is a very old town, there were little side and back alleys to discover as well as old doors.

I loved this sculpture holding the basket with the plants.

It was in front of a wine shop. Behind it you can see a wooden box filled with wine bottles. But somehow I think this is not enough for Elizabeth and Bleubeard's T Tuesday. However, since we didn't have any drink here - at least none that we took a picture of - I have to fall back to one of my mugs that I use for drinking coffee or hot chocolate. This mug came from my favorite Swedish company. 

Crossing the Alps

We're getting closer to the end of our short six-country-trip, but I'm afraid for the last day I will need more than one post. Today, we're starting in Südtirol (South Tyrol) which is an autonomous province in the North of Italy. The majority of the population here speaks German followed by Italian (less than a quarter of the population) and Ladin (less than 5%). Südtirol is the wealthiest province in Italy and among the wealthiest in the European Union. I want to add it is also one of the most beautiful ones. As you can guess, the region has a tumultuous history like so many parts in Europe. With the new  right-wing government in Rome, many people in Südtirol are also afraid that their autonomy might be limited in the future.

After we left the Campanile di Curon, we eventually found a beautiful place to stay in the village of St. Martin in Passeier (San Martino In Passiria) - an entire flat with several rooms and a balcony, plus a delicious breakfast served the next morning, accompanied by good conversation with the hosts. This was the view from our appartment:

In the evening we went down into the village to a nice restaurant where we could sit on the terrace and eat while watching the mountains' Alpenglühen (alpenglow). The food was delicious! We had it with a bottle of the local white wine which was excellent (we would call that "süffig" in German for which there is no adequate translation to English). Of course this is for Elizabeth and Bleubeard's T stands for Tuesday where you need to post something drink related.

From left to right: Trio of dumplings (beets, cheese, spinach); homemade potato gnocchi with asparagus, prosciutto and ramsons pesto; filet of trout with veggie gnocchi

This was followed by dessert - dark and light tartufo (left) and panna cotta.

The next morning we started the last leg of our trip, the journey back to München. First, we need to cross a part of the Alps. Let's take the Jaufenpass (Passo di Monte Giovo) which is a high mountain pass at an elevation of 2094 meters. It was a pleasant, mostly sunny day and we stopped many times to take in the views.

Of course, we took family pictures again - how could we not?

I enjoyed all the wildflowers in the area.

Almost at the top - let's take a look back from where we came.

Finally at the top - looking back and ahead:

This brought back so many memories of familiy vacations spent in the Alps in my childhood. I stood at this place more than 50 years ago and I was just in awe as I was as a child. The majesty of the mountains are second to none.

Like so often in the Alps, there was a tiny chapel at the pass.

Next week I will tell you about the next stop of our journey, but today I want to show you some happy mail that I got. The first one, from Elle, I received several weeks ago. She knows that I love cats (and so does she) and sent me a cat card - how cute is this? And look at the beautiful stamps!

The second one made its way from Australia. Over the years, Elephant's Child has sent me magnets of Floriade, an annual flower and entertainment festival in Canberra. They are on my fridge and always remind me of the time when we were both writing for Vision and Verb - that's actually how we "met". This year's magnet is particularly beautiful and I love the happy sunflower card.

If you're in the US, go out today and vote (if you haven't already done so). Our democracy is at stake.

T is for Travel

 

Frauenkirche, München

You may have noticed (or not) that I was missing from blogland for the most part of May. The reason is simple - on May 9th we boarded a plane to München (Munich), Germany to finally see our daughter again. It's been almost two years since she left California in the middle of the pandemic to start her new adventure of living and doing her Masters in Germany. We wanted to see her life in München before she will move to a different city in Germany for her job in research after she will have graduated from LMU (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München).

It's difficult to describe my feelings of seeing her again after such a long time (I won't even try). She met us at the airport (we landed in the late afternoon), and after seeing her tiny tiny appartment and checking into our hotel, we did what you do in Munich on a warm night - we vistied a Biergarten (beer garden), the first one of many.

A Biergarten is a truly Bavarian thing - as long as you order a drink there, you can bring your own food. This is the case in all Bavarian beer gardens, but I am not sure whether this is true for the rest of the country - where there aren't that many beer gardens in the first place (maybe Iris has an answer to that). Of course you can also order food in a Biergarten - it is good, but kind of a limited offer and certainly not much for vegetarians and almost nothing if you prefer to eat vegan. A Biergarten is rustic and so is the food.

In the picture I'm holding a glass of dark Weißbier in my hand, and you can also see the top of a glass of Weißbier. If you order just Weißbier, you always get the lighter (in color) version of it, but if you want the darker one (which I prefer), you explicitly have to say so. Bavarian breweries produce excellent Weißbier (in the rest of the country, this is often referred to as Hefeweizen, and it is known under this name in the US as well). We went to so many beer gardens (we avoided indoor dining as much as possible) that it deserves its own blogpost some time later.

Of course we extensively explored the city - more about that in upcoming posts.

We enjoyed the local food (more about that in future posts for Kathy's Food Wednesday), but I really want to emphasize on pretzels - THE Bavarian bread product. You can get pretzels all over the country by now, but I do have to say that the Bavarian ones are extremely tasty. They're called Breze here and Brezel in the others parts of Germany (note the missing l).

This is a particular big, beer garden style Breze that Kaefer is holding here. We don't eat pretzels with mustard - I don't know why this is so popular in the US. It's a disgrace to the pretzel. You eat it with butter or sometime with cream cheese and chives (very popular in München), and the only time you have sweet (!) mustard with it is when you eat Weißwurst, a typical Bavarian sausage that should be eaten before 11:00 am (some places offer them until 2:00 pm. If you see them being offered after noon you know you are in a tourist trap).

Of course it goes down well with a glass of beer or two.

Here, Kaefer is having a Weißbier and I have a Dunkles Halbes. 

Apart from exploring München, we also took the trains to the beautiful lakes in the vicinity of the city and even a bit further away.

Beautiful, quiet Ammersee ...

... famous Starnberger See ...

... and romantic Königssee in the Bavarian Alps.

And yes, we had beer on these trips (Elizabeth, I hope these are enough drinks to qualify for a T post).

Franziskaner Weißbier is one of my favorites, but not the only one. Weißbier has its own special shaped glass - actually, every kind of beer has its own glass. I will go deeper into the "beer science" when I will write about beer gardens.

After about a week or so we left München for a little trip with Kaefer. We first re-visited my old stomping grounds, Tübingen, where I had lived for 22 years and Kaefer was born 24 years ago.

This was on our way to France where we spent a few days in Alsace. When I still lived in Tübingen I often went to Alsace for a long weekend or so. It was wonderful to see all the villages and small towns again. Nothing much seemed to have changed here.

Barr

Kaysersberg

Ribeauvillé

After a short stay in Freiburg, Germany we drove to Switzerland where we visited Luzern (Lucerne) and the Vierwaldstättersee (Lake Lucerne), some of the few Swiss places I hadn't been before.

Kapellbrücke (Chapel Bridge)

Through Liechtenstein - a rather odd little state - we crossed into Austria at one of the smallest border crossings I had ever seen.

Vaduz, Liechtenstein

Our final destination was the region of Südtirol (South Tyrol), an autonomous province in the North of Italy right in the midst of the Alps. I had been here as a child and I felt the same awe about this beautiful area again. We visited the Campanile di Curon Venosta Vecchia with its infamous history as well as beautiful Vipiteno or Sterzing as it is called in German. The population in Südtirol speaks predominantly German as a result of its history with Austria. The other two languages spoken here are Ladin (a Romance dialect) and Italian.

Campanile di Curon Venosta Vecchia

Vipiteno / Sterzing

Back in Germany we took the train to Würzburg for a Bartz family gathering over the weekend. Würzburg is two high-speed-train hours North of München, still located in Bavaria in a region called Franken (Franconia). This area produces great wine that is sold in a special type of bottle called "Bocksbeutel". Würzburg is an old city on the river Main, with old bridges, a fortress, a castle and a dome/cathedral - it's a lovely place.

Alte Mainbrücke and Festung Marienberg, Würzburg

The hardest day was the day after - when we had to say goodbye to Kaefer, not knowing when we will see her next. After we had landed in San Francisco and wanted to drive home, our car wouldn't start. Just the thing you want after an almost 12-hour flight! We called AAA and thankfully after only 20 minutes roadside assistance arrived and jump started the car. It took another 90 minutes to drive home - we were done and just sunk into blissful sleep in our own bed.

Unpacking the suitcase the following morning was pure joy!