Barely Bolzano (Italy) by Ruth Paget
On the way to Vicenza (Italy) from Stuttgart (Germany) with my husband Laurent, we drove through Austria and made a sharp right turn at Innsbruck, site of the 1976 Olympic Games where Franz Klammar zoomed downhill in what seemed like 20 seconds to clinch the gold medal.
The roads from Innsbruck into Italy were all hairpin 180 degree turns around and down through the Alps, which look like pyramids in the sky.
The scenery is German in northeastern Italy and is still called the Sud Tyrol by Austria, which once occupied the area. Snow White architecture abounded.
I wanted to stop and get a good photo of myself to post with a coffee, gipfel (croissant), Alpine goat milk yogurt, and Alpine flower honey. I asked to stop for a snack.
“It looks too expensive,” Laurent said.
“Where are we?” I asked.
A German-language town sign came into view with a diagonal bar through it signaling exiting from town. The sign said Bozen.
“Do you know the Italian name of Bozen?” I asked Laurent.
He told me to look up the translation at the hotel. Reception for the Internet was not great in the Alps, so I had to wait till we checked in at Vicenza.
I saw that Bozen is Bolzano in Italian.
At the time, Bolzano billed itself as “The real billionaires’ vacation land.”
I wanted to check out Bolzano.
“You have to make a billion dollars first and pay for the gipfels,” Laurent told me.
I was Bolzano denied for the moment.
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
