bolzano

another of our trips thanks to the eurail passes we bought before we left was to get a taste of winter in the alps: We headed for Bolzano hoping to see at least one of the following: the mercatini di natale (Christmas villages), the cave man who popped out of a glacier in 1992 (he’s on ice in a museum in Bolzano), or a panorama of the alps from a cable car. It turns out we were a week early for the mercatini, and most other things were closed on a Sunday including the tourist information center. After a quick walk around the little town center, we found a nice place to eat where we had the best Italian beer we’ve had yet- this may be in part due to the fact that Bolzano’s ‘italian-ness’ is debatable. The waitress spoke to us initially in German (the native language for 2/3rds of Alto Adige) but understood us fine when we spoke to her in Italian. We found the cable car (in Italian called ‘funivia’) and were delighted to discover we riding the first cable car ever to run- exactly 100 years ago! The view was great- the kids made snowballs, we enjoyed the view of the snow covered alpine peaks, and then we had hot chocolate before coming down and heading home. The snow followed us all the way to Monterenzio.