Südtirol/Alto Adige: Denkmäler/Memoriale

I became very interested in war memorials—their design, placement, meaning, and emotional power—in preparation for my London experience, and while I was there.

But until this trip, I had not had the opportunity to see, and be moved by, memorials erected by the other side in the World Wars.

Kastelruth/Castelrotto was rich in these memorials. And I couldn't help but realize that this region of the world was on the "other side" in both World War I and II. It was part of Austria-Hungary in World War I, when Italy fought on the same side as the UK and US. Then, after being ceded to Italy, that country fell under fascism and fought with Germany against us.

The memorial at the top of this post is at one end of the well-tended cemetery behind the village's church. Here is how it looks from up on the hill behind our hotel...

...and here's a somewhat closer panoramic shot of the tiny area:

the white structure in the background is where the war memorial is located

Of course a cemetery is nothing if not a collection of memorials, and this one was particularly interesting. Its arrangement and iconography are so different from the cemeteries long-time readers will know that I've visited in the US, and even from those I frequented in the UK.

Part of the differences, no doubt, spring from the lack of space. The plots are small, and many of them seem to be devoted to whole families...

As you'll notice, it is a cemetery that is frequently visited by villagers, and well-decorated with flowers, sometimes rather extravagantly...

Also strange-looking to me are the metallic "headstones," as well as the little containers at every plot—for holy water?

We saw memorials outside of the town, too, like this one that graces a point on the Hexenbänke/Banche delle Streghe trail we hiked at Seiser Alm/Alpe di Suisi. It remembers, we think, a young hiker...

But back to the memorials specifically commemorating the dead of the region's wars. On either side of the mural I showed you at the top of the post, there are lists of names. On the right are those from the area killed or missing from World War I, and on the left from World War II...

If you click on this image you can see it in some more detail. The long, long list of names beginning just above half-way down the column on the right is under the heading Vermisst, which means "missing." Not only is it heartbreaking to realize so many of the area's dead were never found to be properly mourned by their loved ones, but it dates, to some degree, the erection of this monument. 

Because it's written Vermisst instead of Vermißt, the list was probably painted after the German spelling reforms of 1996. The monument does look rather new and unweathered, and it doesn't follow the usual (at least in the UK) practice of just adding a list of World War II dead to an already existing list from World War I. This monument looks like it was erected all of a piece to pay homage to the dead and missing from both wars.

An older memorial list is on the front of the village church...

The names under Fraktion Dorf were from Kastelruth/Castelrotto, followed by names from the nearby villages of Seis and St. Michael. A panel on the other side of the church doors lists men from other nearby towns. My German grammar is rusty (and was never all that great) but I also think the inscription at the top is in the local dialect. But I think it means, more or less, "those remembered by Kastelruth who fell in the war 1914-1918." Notice there's not an Italian text; those who fell in that war were not Italians.

An even more moving memorial, of sorts, is right across from the registration desk in our hotel. It includes pictures of many local men who were lost in World War II. I was unable to take a picture of this obviously old and revered poster that was clear enough for you to read the inscriptions, but most of them are identified by the time and place of their deaths, and these ran the entire spread of the war, both temporally and geographically...

Some sober notes to be inserted into our super-fun vacation, but notes that make the experience all the richer. As well as a good reminder that, even though those governments were responsible for starting the big 20th-century wars, their people suffered as much, if not more, than ours did.

Wordless Wednesday: stay on the trail, no matter what*

*Tootle

Seiser Alm/Alpe di Suisi: infrastructure and amenities

This is Compatsch (it doesn't seem to have an Italian name, too) and it would be your base of operations if you came to the Seiser Alm/Alpe di Suisi to ski.

It's full of amenities like hotels, restaurants and bars, shops, and of course WC's. We only took advantage of the last item, after our Hexenbänke/Banche delle Streghe hike. But it's also a transportation hub; we opted to ride a bus up to the meadow, but there are alternative modes...

This is the Seiser Alm Bahn/Cabinovia Alpe di Suisi, which leaves from the little village of Seis/Suisi (a little ways up the road from Kastelruth/Castelrotto). 

If we had better understood the bus system, we might have opted to hop a bus for Seis/Suisi (free with the pass provided by the hotel) and then taken the gondola up to Compatsch. It and the shuttle bus from Kastelruth/Castelrotto cost the same, but we had misunderstood our host and thought the shuttle bus was covered by our pass. Alas, it's part of a separate system that's not included, and we were too flummoxed by this mix-up to just wait for the bus to Seis/Suisi instead. Oh, well, next time we'll know better and will ride the fun gondola.

The bus ride was nice, though, and afforded some great scenery, as well as a look at some of the areas' livestock on the move...

We did see lots of cows (with incredibly loud bells around their necks!) while we were hiking, but that's not the only domestic animal living on the meadow in summer...

And of course the Seiser Alm Bahn/Cabinovia Alpe di Suisi isn't the only lift. In fact, looking at Rick Steves' map in his Italy guidebook, I counted five. (The link isn't to this map, but rather to an interesting and informative article about the area.)

If you want to do much hiking, you almost have to take one of the area's lifts. The meadow (according to RS' article) is about 3 miles by seven, and that's a lot of real estate to cover. Its elevation is about 6,500'.

To get to our main hike's starting point, we rode the Puflatsch/Bullaccia lift. It was a smooth, scenic way to get up the mountain, with a nice WC at the top terminus, a must stop before starting any hike.

There was other useful infrastructure at the top, too, from a restaurant and a tubing slide (!) to this extremely helpful, and well-designed, guide to the surrounding mountains:

At the top of a hill near the trailhead, it gives you 360° of mountain identifications...

I love signs like these when you have mountain views! Knowing the names of the peaks, not to mention their heights, for some reason enhances my enjoyment of the mountain experience.

This display was almost too detailed, including the names of peaks far, far in the distance, that might have been visible on really clear days, but which we couldn't really make out.

Plus, it has the bonus feature of being not just bi- but multi-lingual! The photo I've included above was only one of many I took, and they seem to have all the permutations of German-Italian-Ladin names: some have only German, some only Italian, and some only Ladin (as best I could tell). Then some are German/Ladin, some German/Italian, and some Italian/Ladin.

I guess some of the peaks have special significance to people of one language group or another? I'd love to have the time to study the background for all this linguistic variation...doesn't that sound like fun?!

Safety tip explained on the sign at the right: you can't spend a long time studying this wonderful mountain map in all kinds of weather. Tall hilltop, surrounded by metal—not such a good idea in  a thunderstorm. (Although the platform does come with its own angel-topped lightning rod, if you'll look at the first picture above.)

We didn't ride any of the area's other lifts, but after our Hexenbänke/Banche delle Streghe hike, we weren't quite ready to leave this amazing place. 

So we took another trail that follows the Panorama lift. (We were perhaps drawn to this trail since one of our favorite lifts at our "home" ski area is also called Panorama; you can see some winter photos taken atop it here.) It leads away from Compatsch in a different direction and we wanted to see what kind of views we could get heading that way.

Needless to say, the views were fabulous. It got a little chilly as the clouds thickened while we were hiking, but it wasn't too cold to have a nice sample of the local brew (Forst) al fresco, at the pretty fancy Santner Hotel and Restaurant...

nice views of Schlern/Sciliar included in the price of the beer!

This is just one of many establishments scattered all over the meadow, providing a pretty sweet infrastructure for hikers and skiers. What an incredibly civilized way to hike!

I took the following photo near another "rest stop," a slightly more rustic Hütte on our longer hike. "X marks the spot" indeed! This magical meadow was one of the highlights (not just because of the elevation!) of our trip.

Südtirol/Alto Adige: Seiser Alm/Alpe di Suisi

Ha, ha! Funny story! I thought I could fit all the photos of this magical meadow that I wanted to share into one blog post. What a dreamer! As soon as I started seriously sorting through them I knew this was impossible.

So I'm going to show you the best of my scenic shots today. Then next time I'll tell you about how we got up there, how we got around, and cover some other interesting points concerning the area's infrastructure.

The group of peaks in the photo up top is the Langkofel Group. You might remember the little German lesson I imparted when describing our first stroll around Kastelruth/Castelrotto: Kofel means cone-shaped hill or mountain. The eponymous Langkofel peak in the group is the one that's tipped with clouds in my introductory photo (lang means "long" in German).

I probably took fifty pictures of these peaks as the day progressed. Don't worry, I won't show you all of them, but it was hard to pare the collection down to a manageable number. They're so gorgeous! First up, here's a shot from earlier in the day, before the clouds descended...

Langkofel/Sasso Longo is the peak on the left; the wide, flat one on the right is Plattkofel/Sasso Piatto, platt meaning "flat." (I'll show you next time the handy signage that identified the peaks for me.)

Here's a closer-up view...

...one with the ever-photogenic dead tree in the foreground...

...and another look at Langkofel/Sasso Longo with the lowering clouds...

If there's a more handsome group of peaks anywhere, I'd like to see them. As a bonus, after doing some triangulation, we think we determined that these are the peaks we could see from our hotel room window, albeit from a different angle.

Of course, the most wonderful thing about this incredible meadow is that you have gorgeous peaks in every direction, even if the Langkofel are the most photogenic. I made a crude attempt to display at least 180° of this view; you can see the resulting video here.

The views even include, in spite of some haze, rows of mountains that are quite distant...

...and other layers in the mid-distance...

In fact, the very layered-ness of the scenery is one of its most memorable features...

On the other side of the meadow from the Langkofel Group you find the iconic Schlern/Sciliar, which makes such an impressive backdrop to many of my Kastelruth/Castelrotto village photos. We saw it from a few different angles during our hiking day. First, out the window on the bus ride up to the meadow...

...much later in the afternoon, on our hike up the trail that parallels the Panorama Lift (more on the area's lifts next time—yes, the meadow is actually a ski area!)...

...and a view once we'd climbed up level with its summit, on the our hike...

Can you blame this happy tourist for smiling?

Normally you would think that in order to see such spectacularly rugged peaks you'd have to do a lot of rock-climbing. But the beauty of the Seiser Alm/Alpe di Suisi is that it is really a meadow. Which means that you can get these fabulous views from the relative comfort of a gently undulating trail.

Our main hike took the Hexenbänke/Banche delle Streghe trail, one of the most popular, and there were a lot of fellow hikers on it with us. But with such an abundance of lovely space and scenery, we never felt crowded.

The trail makes a large loop, and on its edge away from the main meadow view, you still have fabulous scenery to enjoy. Specifically, you can look down at the valleys flanking the meadow, which are dotted with scenic villages.

I believe this is St. Ulrich, tucked so neatly into its valley

can you guess what town this is? doesn't the bell tower look familiar?

I couldn't help but try to imagine what this amazing scenery would look like blanketed in snow. Fortunately, there was this cool photograph on the wall in our hotel room, showing the Schlern/Sciliar from the Panorama lift, during ski season...

Doesn't that look incredible?! What a place this would be to ski, especially cross-country. Next time I'll show you some of the infrastructure perks on offer for skiers here. 

Of course, getting here would be more expensive than driving to Colorado, but the lift ticket prices seem actually reasonable compared to those at Rockies ski areas (although I'm not sure what all is included; you might have to pay extra for some lifts). Hmmmm...a future vacation idea?

Südtirol/Alto Adige: Kastelruth/Castelrotto

This lovely little village was our home base for three nights, the longest stay of the Italian part of our vacation. The reason we picked it you can see peeking over the hills in the background of this photo: it's really close to the prime Dolomite hiking area, the Seiser Alm/Alpe di Suisi. I'll tell you about that wonderful place next time, but I want to show you more of Kastelruth/Castelrotto first.

After our scenic drive east from Lake Como, we wanted to stretch our legs a bit upon arrival here. Fortunately, our good friend Rick Steves described a perfect little hike for us.

It's just up the street, that you can see here, from our wonderful hotel (although it's true that nothing's too far from anything else in this compact little village).

At the end of the street, a nice trail winds around a hill on the edge of town. It's called the Kalvarienberg/Calvario, since it's decorated with life-sized structures and sculptures depicting the stations of the cross. Here's Henry taking a picture of one of the little niches:

There's a little chapel at the top of the Kofel (cone-shaped hill) but what I found more interesting was this informational sign that gives a good thumbnail sketch of the village's history, including an explanation of its name (the sign had German, Italian, and English text):

The hill also offered some great views of the town and surrounding mountains; many of the shots I've shown, and will show you, were taken from up here.

We had time after this little walk to take a peek in the Parish Church, on the square. Not surprisingly, the interior was sumptuous baroque (it was rebuilt in the mid-1700's after an earlier structure burned).

The windows were non-narrative and quite lovely...

Another impressive village sight is this hotel's façade...

After our day hiking in the Dolomites (which I'll tell you about next time) we earmarked our second day in this lovely area for a trip to Bozen/Bolzano. But before we left Kastelruth/Castelrotto, we were treated to part of a special alpine celebration.

notice the German & Italian

It turns out that we were there on an important day, the Almabtrieb/Transumanza, when the farmers bring their stock down from the summer pastures.

This is apparently a really big deal in these mountain villages and while we missed getting to see the decorated cows (google "transumanza castelrotto" to see some) we were able to enjoy some of the festival atmosphere.

There was a talented duo singing regional favorites (the crowd sang along with most of the choruses)...

...cute boys in lederhosen serenading us on very large horns...

...and older guys giving us the most unusual percussion performance you can imagine (and I've heard a percussion concerto!)...

Yes, that's a bullwhip, and there were two more fellows with whips behind him. They were really quite amazing. Although they wielded the whips pretty intensely, the guys were actually very nice...

If you look closely at my friend's [apron?] you'll see the logo for Kastelruth/Castelrotto's most famous cultural product...

"Welcome to the home of the Kastelruther Spatzen"

These guys are apparently like rock stars around here, and you can find lots of their music on the internet. For example, if you want to see some of the countryside that Henry and I hiked, along with musical accompaniment, they've got you covered. 

We won't be singing as we hike (although we did encounter an extremely accomplished yodeler!) but I'll have plenty of spectacular Dolomite photos to share with you next time.

Wordless Wednesday: toobers...they're everywhere!