It’s already time for part II of my series about my summer holidays. This time let’s talk about South Tyrol. I’ve been there last year as well – escaping the bad weather in Austria. This time it was just the same. It only rained once a day in Italy (while it was raining the whole time in Austria) and it was fairly warm. But let’s look at the pictures.
A picture says more than a thousand words. Like this picture of the botanical garden in Meran:
What did we do in South Tyrol? We hiked, had a wild herbs workshops, hiked some more, went to an archery parc, ate really well, hiked some more, went to the botanical garten and went for a hike there. I guess you get the overall theme: hiking. You should see my butt now. All firm and strong. Ha!
It rained all the way when we drove there and the sun came out just when we arrived Bozen. This created a very dramatic light with dark clouds in the background and a sunlit city square.
I want to tell you about 2 special activities that we did in Southern Tyrol: archery and the wild herbs workshop. We promised ourselves that we want to learn something new while on holiday and so we looked for activities and events that were new to us. It’s a really great concept for a holiday – at least that’s my humble opinion – because you get our of your comfort zone and can take some new skill or knowledge with you.
First up was the wild herbs workshop: I’m totally into different wild plants that you can eat. I guess I’ve shown this here, here and here already but I also like to learn something new. So we had this (free!) workshop at a farm up on the mountains in South Tyrol with a lovely lady a little older than me (not at all an old witch or something) and she told us a lot about wild flowers and herbs that she grows in her garden but can also be found in the wild. We sat in a circle in her garden and tasted ourselves through a whole variation of flowers and leaves while she told us a lot about their ingredients and what they are good for. I’m sure I’ll share one or two things that I learned here on the blog.
In the end of this 3 hours workshop we all sat together and enjoyed homemade lemonade, handmade bread and wild herb spread and a cake with flowers baked into the cream. So good!
On another day we went to an archery parc which was really great because you could shoot some rubber animals in the wood (Mom, if you read this: all safe and secure of course). And the one thing I learned: don’t ever send me into the Hunger Games. I would die in the first minute. I was (really) that bad. I’m so happy that nobody’s food depends on my archery skills. Don’t even ask if the animals were really small (they weren’t) or if they moved (they didn’t). Just try it yourself. You’ll see it’s not that easy!
There are a lot of castles in South Tyrol and the most famous ones belong to Reinhold Messner. One that we spent a lot of time in is called Messner Mountain Museum Firmian. The name tells you all about it, it’s a museum. About mountains. Which sounds more boring that it is (at least to me). You can find a lot of history of Big Mountain Hiking, the countries Messner is most interested in the history of South Tyrol. (Do you see the tiny little person sitting in front of the stone man? That’s my boyfriend.)
The castle itself is beautifully renovated and they added some great modern architecture that complimented the old buildings.
I once lost my boyfriend along the way (it’s that big) and had some time to kill, so I took some pictures. Of myself. On the bridge. What are you doing when you’re bored? The same, right?
On some of the windows were some sayings printed. What a clever (DIY?) idea, right? I might need to steal reinterpret that. This one above says “Better suffer injustice then commit injustice.” Which is so true that it should be printed on a window. Oh yeah, it is. Right.
While we went on a very scenic hike one day, we found a tiny falcon sitting on the path. It wasn’t afraid or anything. It just sat there while we came closer. It looked at us suspiciously but didn’t stop eating ants from the floor.
So we got a little scared if it fell out of its nest and can’t fly anymore, so I picked it up. (You might have seen the picture of me holding the little fella on Instragram.) It looked at me mildly annoyed and then just hopped out of my hands and back on the floor with a minimum of wing-assistance. So it could fly. And we stopped bothering it.
This was the day we went for a hike to a waterfall and strolled back when we saw the dark clouds coming in. So we went to Meran and had the biggest ice-cream ever and watched the sky turn into this dramatic state.
On our way to Vorarlberg (part III of our holiday) we went some more – yes, you guessed right – hiking and searched for some mushooms (which we didn’t find) and encountered this beautiful wild meadow up on the mountains. Can you find me? And with this ends my story about South Tyrol. Come back tomorrow to find a recipe that reminds me of this holiday.
Now. Carry on!
[…] One of the symbols of South Tyrol is the apple. In Austria – when you do buy apples – they sometimes have a sticker with the origin of South Tyrol on them which is a high quality sign. And I really like apples. I once had a phase when I ate 2 kg of apples a week. So it’s no wonder that I chose a dish with apples to represent the culinary part II of my summer holiday. […]