Time to move on to Italy. We climbed further up the valley
with lovely views of the mountains and then started to descend on the southern
side of the pass. The valley started to open up and as we entered Italy we
started to see many castles and fortifications on both sides of the valley, It
was obvious that this area had been much fought over in the past. The scenery
was beautiful with mountains on both sides and high peaks smothered in cloud in
the distance. We stopped at a service area to have some lunch and, this has
never happened to us before, we were thrown out of the car park. We were told
that there was an ‘event’ happening and we were asked, politely, to move. It
turned out to be a group of boy racers with souped-up cars. I can’t say they
were very impressive but they did have a very, very loud sound system!
We skirted Merano (Meran) and Bolzano (Bozen) before turning off on the S242
down the Gardena Valley (Groden). The names in brackets are the German names
and all villages and towns in this area have both German and Italian names. In
fact, the predominant language after crossing the border into Italy was, much
to our surprise, German. South Tyrol was part of the Austro-Hungarian until
1918 and German still seems to be the predominant language. There are actually
three official languages in South Tyrol, German, Italian and Ladin, the latter
being an ancient language, a combination of Latin and the Rhaeto language of
the area when the Romans conquered it in 1 BC. The Gardena Valley is one of the
few areas where Ladin is still used.
The Gardena Valley started in a narrow valley with the road twisting, following
the river and rising steeply. After a while, the valley opened out and we were
into the famous skiing area. We had identified a camperstop in Santa Cristina,
still within the Gardena Valley and parked up next to the mountain stream. The
camperstop has no facilities but provided us (and lots of others) a place to
spend the night for €10.
We walked up into the village and found the Ristorante Pizzeria L Fudle where
we had an excellent meal and wine in very posh surroundings and with very good
service.
I asked if there was anywhere in the village that we would be able to watch the
Rugby World Cup but the answer was no. We went back to the van and listened to
England v Japan on Radio 5 Live. A victory but not exactly convincing - too
many kicks and not very adventurous. That won’t be good enough when we meet the
top teams.
Photos: The impressive Abbey of Monte Maria with Furstenburg Castle below it, near the town of Malles Venosta; We were greeted by this sculpture as we arrived at Santa Cristina; The camperstop; A crib scene in the town; The dramatic bare mountain towering over Santa Cristina.
No comments:
Post a Comment