Südtirol/Alto Adige: Zum Turm and some explanations

I love languages and that makes this fascinating little corner of Europe an extra-fun place for me.

It has everything you expect from Italy: gorgeous churches (of course), interesting museums, lots of fine gelaterias, and other culinary delights. Plus, truly amazing mountains all around...

And another plus is its convoluted history, which is responsible for its equally unique and interesting linguistic status.

For several centuries part of Bavaria, the Austro-Hungarian empire, and other German-speaking confederations, South Tyrol only became part of Italy at the end of World War I. The Wikipedia link here has lots more details, but this is the essence of the Südtirol/Alto Adige in a nutshell. (And this article in the Guardian sums up the not surprisingly convoluted and potentially volatile politics all this mixing produces.)

The German Südtirol name is pretty straightforward, since Süd means "south," and the region of Austria they used to be part of is the Tyrol. Alto Adige means "Upper Adige" and refers to the headwaters of the region's major river.

Because of this Germanic history, both German and Italian are official languages of the region, and you hear and see both everywhere. Although German is definitely dominant in the little town that was our home base, and it always appears first on signs. (Italian sometimes doesn't even come in second, like on the warning sign at the right, seen on our Dolomites hike.)

This is just a roundabout way of explaining why I've elected to give place names, etc., in both languages—mainly, I admit, because of my aforementioned love of languages. I think a place like this, where knowing multiple languages is practically required, is so cool!

(Full disclosure: there's even another language—Ladin—spoken as a first language by some 15% of the population, according to Wikipedia. But as much of a language geek as I am, I have to draw the line somewhere! And they must draw it here, too, since I didn't see this language on any signs; at least, I didn't recognize it as such.)

We spent our nights and most of our days in Kastelruth/Castelrotto, a charming little town surrounded by the Dolomites. The hotel (thanks again, Rick Steves!) that was our base was probably the nicest one of our whole trip, and its name provides me with a perfect segue into a wider description of the town and the region, as we experienced it. I'll share more of that description with you next time, but for now, I'll dwell on just one of its features.

The hotel is called Zum Turm/Alla Torre, which means "at the tower," and the tower in question is the one you see on the left, and in the numerous photos below.

Here's the street leading from the hotel (see the lettering on the wall) to the town square and its handsome bell tower...

And here's another view of the street, showing better the little arch we were directed to drive through to reach our destination...yes, I'm glad we had a tiny car!

I couldn't seem to take enough shots of this great tower. In this one, if you look closely, you'll see some festival banners decorating the steeple. I'll explain what they were celebrating next time.

I'll also show you, in a future post, some more close-up looks at the cemetery behind the church on the square; it was really interesting...

The bell tower used to be attached to the church, but when an older church burned in the 1700's they rebuilt the tower where it was, but decided to back the new church up a bit, to widen the town square. I'll show you the square and interior of the church next time.

Another feature of Tyrolean culture is the maypole that you can see in this shot of the tower...

Zum Turm/Alla Torre was such a nice hotel, as well as being perfectly located. In addition to our comfy room, they served an amazing included breakfast, the best we would have until joining our cruise...

We stuffed ourselves every morning, and started the day refreshed with hand-squeezed juice!

Their restaurant also serves fancy dinners, and we took advantage of the 10% guest discount one night for a treat.

I'll close with this look out the window of our room...

Pretty sweet, eh? After a good night's sleep in our great accommodations, we took off the next day to get closer to those tantalizing peaks. 

But before I tell you about that, I want to show you more of the village of Kastelruth/Castelrotto, which I'll do next time.

Super-trip: on the road

Two days after arriving in Italy, refreshed from the relaxing shores of Lago di Como, we were on the move. I was in favor of using mass transit for our whole trip, but Henry wanted to drive all the way, so we compromised. 

The first part of our Italian sojourn involved small towns and parking included with our hotels, as well as twisty mountain roads that Henry was keen to drive on...

...so it made sense to make this section our driving adventure. When we got to Siena, where parking is problematic, and Florence, where it's horribly expensive (if not impossible) we traded our car in for buses and trains.

But that's getting ahead of myself. First we had the drive from Lake Como to the South Tyrol, our second destination.

There are two ways to get there, and we thought, looking at the map, that the northern route would be more scenic. For one thing, the road hugs the eastern shore of Lake Como for miles, so we were looking forward to lots of views like this...

view of Lake Como as we climbed out of Varenna

However, what we got instead were lots of views like this...

Yes, the efficient northern Italians have opted for the speedy travel aid of tunnels over scenic, winding mountain roads. Miles and miles of tunnels, some well over a kilometer long (at least you get some warning; a helpful sign as you enter tells you how long the tunnel is).

As we turned east from the Lake, we lost the tunnels, but gained lots of little towns with many roundabouts that our GPS had some difficulty with. Not to mention a random polizia stop which was somewhat alarming! (fortunately coming to nothing)

But the trip, while taking a couple of hours longer than it was supposed to, was overall quite pleasant.

Although we regretted the lack of lake views, there was plenty of scenery...

hillside with vines

a lovely valley

mountains in the distance...

...and mountains close-up, with a village for scale

As we traversed a few national parks and ski areas, the mountains were really spectacular...

I have to keep reminding myself that while civilization is older in Europe than in North America, the mountains are lots younger. So rugged and supremely photogenic!

Even after we left our winding little road, with its crazy motorbike riders, some of which had certainly not taken this extraordinary safety message to heart...

I took lots of pictures of unusual Italian road signs;
there will be a whole post of them coming up eventually

...the scenery along the Autostrada was still stunning...

After Bolzano/Bozen (I'll explain the dual-language thing in my next post) we left the big road again and got to wind some more. Although we followed the Autostrada for a while:

A few hours late, but still in time for dinner and a stroll, we reached our destination in the Dolomites: Kastelruth/Castelrotto. Here's a little teaser of what's to come:

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If you want to see everywhere that we drove (and get a preview of coming blog attractions) here is a map. (The mass transit section of the trip is shown in a separate map that I'll link to when the time comes.)

Lago di Como: Villa Carlotta

This is the sight of the Villa Carlotta as our ferry approached its dock. As impressive as this structure is, the Villa is most known for its extensive gardens; most of the pictures I want to show you were taken outside.

We thought the gardens were pretty spectacular, and very much worth seeing, but I couldn't help but wonder how much more amazing they would look in springtime. Of course, during that season, I'm sure the place would be packed with tourists; whereas during our visit, there were no annoying crowds. The garden paths are so long and meandering that we'd walk for long stretches without having to share the trail with anyone.

We did meet a friendly German couple, however, whom I helped by taking a picture of them. They then obliged us with a similar favor:

happy tourists at the garden's panoramic viewpoint

The gardens exhibit a few formal beds...

...but for the most part, the vibe is more natural, if not exactly wild. The eponymous Carlotta's husband, Georg II of Saxen-Meiningen, was a lover of "botanics," and collected trees, shrubs, and flowers from all over the world. (There were even some California redwoods! Oddly, this wasn't the last time we saw some of these trees on our trip, but the second instance came much later.) 

So the "forests" of the gardens look a little fantastical, especially in the conifer department...

this "hoop pine" provides a fantasy frame for a fine lake view

...and there is also an extensive bamboo grove...

But on to the fall flowers! Here's just a sample:

striking blooms along a side path

contrasting white textures, with Lake view

handsome reds at the edge of a meadow

more luxuriant lantana blooms than we usually see at home

Wandering around the extensive path network (that is reasonably well-signed; although you could never really get lost, you can get confused occasionally) was great fun, and good exercise for folks who'd recently spent 14 or so hours in planes and airports. There was even a picturesque and conveniently-placed WC about half-way around...found just in time!

Though Carlotta's gardens are the main draw, there is a Villa, and it was interesting to tour. Although I must admit, a good bit of its attractions involved looking out the windows...

the main gate and the Lake, from a Villa window

The interior is more like a museum than a place where people actually lived, although occasionally there's sort of a domestic touch. This bedroom is generally believed to have been Carlotta's...

The sterility isn't too surprising, though, when you read that Carlotta and Georg rarely visited the place. However, we learned that it was a prime stop on young Europeans' Grand Tour in the nineteenth century.

Sculpture is the main focus of most of the rooms; here's my favorite piece, a melancholy Repentant Magdalene:

Of course, the decor of the rooms is also worth mentioning and snapping. I was particularly impressed with a couple of the ceilings (I was to find out as our trip progressed that I have a latent fascination with ceilings and floors...so there will be more gorgeous ceilings to come  .)

one riotous ceiling...

...and one more classically subdued

We were glad to have taken this trip across the Lake to see Villa Carlotta. As brief as our visit was at Lake Como, we felt we made the most of our time. 

Next up, a road trip across northern Italy, and more mountains, ending up in the South Tyrol.

Wordless Wednesday: ski the Italian Alps

Lago di Como: lake and mountains

What a prospect! This is a picture of Lake Como, looking south towards Bellagio and the Lake's split into two branches. Henry took it when he climbed (by himself; I had to nap) up to Castle Vezio, a medieval fortress that overlooks Varenna. Here's a picture I had taken earlier of the castle, from out in the Lake:

In spite of rather persistent hazy air, the Lake and its surrounding scenery are really spectacular. In fact, in some ways the haze enhances the magical nature of the surroundings...

The dramatic nature of today's Lake Como scenery is a result of dramatic geologic forces: the Lake is glacier-cut, and it's amazing to imagine what these young, rugged mountains must have looked like with enormous glaciers cutting through them, where the lakes of this district are today. The glacier that cut Lake Como must have been huge, since it's incredibly deep, one of the deepest lakes in Europe.

It's also rather long, and we only got to see a small section of it, but that was certainly impressive enough.

I wish I'd had the energy to climb up to Castle Vezio with Henry, but we both got some wonderful scenic views on the boat ride we'd taken earlier in the afternoon. 

Most of the pictures in this post were taken during aur trip over to the other side of the Lake, on a vessel like this one...

We wanted to tour one of the Lake's famous villas, the Villa Carlotta in Tremezzo, a small town not far south of the larger Menaggio. (I'll show you what that was like next time), 

But the first stop our boat made was at the more famous Bellagio, a resort town situated where the Lake splits into its two southern branches. (This point of land is called La Punta Spartivento, or the "Point that Splits the Wind"; much more poetic than some other nicknames it has, since if Lake Como is vaguely man-shaped, Bellagio sits at his privates.)

Here's our boat approaching La Punta...

...here's a look at some of Bellagio's extravagant-looking buildings, with even more extravagant mountains in the background...

...and here's a panoramic shot that shows the positions of both Varenna (red line on the left) and Bellagio (line on the right) as seen from further down the western branch of the Lake, near Tremezzo...

The Lake is certainly beautiful, but what makes the scenery especially memorable are the spectacular mountains that frame it. Here's another town, Menaggio, with its mountain backdrop...

Close as we were to Switzerland here—it's just on the other side of this massive ridge—the amazing mountains are what one should expect. (And don't worry, if you want more mountain pictures; at our next destination we got to see even more amazing peaks, and I took lots of pictures there, a selection of which I'll share with you.)

But in the meantime, as a teaser for my Villa Carlotta post, here's a view of the Lake from that estate's extensive gardens...

And I'll close with two more favorite Lake shots. This first is another of Henry's from up at Castle Vezio, and the last is sunset from our favorite perch on the chairs at L'Orso Café, as we had a delightful dinner. 

Knowing we would be leaving this enchanted place the next morning made us a little sad, but our great European adventure was just beginning and we had many more wonderful sights to see and experiences to savor.

But before we leave Varenna, I have one more post to write, about the lovely gardens and rooms of Villa Carlotta.