Aber Bitte mit Sahne

17 September

This day is for my kids.

The first thing you see when you wake up in Yuri’s guesthouse, is the most exquisite view of the valley. Why do we insist on living in the city? The views were obstructed at times with mist that seemed to come and go, and with some rain falling through the night, everything was just so fresh and clean.

We left for the big drive. The Stelvio pass. But first we had to get across the Passo Gavia. Yuri warned us that the road gets narrow at places, but we should not get scared – just drive slowly and hoot. The road gets narrow at places. Very narrow. We were extremely lucky that we did not encounter any other cars from the front in any of these narrow places. It gets so narrow that a bike can barely pass a car, let alone two cars pass one another. And it is not as if there are many places to pull off, to allow someone to pass you. You have mountain on the one side, and, well, nothing on the other side, except a very long way down the mountain.

And once you recover from the Passo Gavia, you are presented with the Stelvio pass. On the way up, we first noticed the boards counting the hairpin bends at bend no. 36. And when I say hairpin, I really mean hairpin. And while the road does get rather narrow at times, it never really got as narrow as the Passo Gavia did. Except for a few tunnels, where the old part of the tunnel was really just wide enough for one car, so if you encountered traffic from the front, which we did, you had to reverse back out of the tunnel, which we had to. I’m very pleased that I was tought to reverse well.

Passo dello Stelvio has clearly become very famous with the biker world, both mountain bikers and motorcyclists. The village at the top of the pass is filled with bikers excitedly chatting about the awesome ride up, and what lies ahead on the way down again, as well as cyclists who pant away happily about the fact that they managed to cycle all the way up to a height of 2400m. It was a great vibe, but eventually we had to leave to tackle about 36 odd more hairpin bends on the way down. We stopped a few times, once to give headway for a bus filled with old people with frantic feet on non-existant breakpedals. The bus could of course seldom get around the bends without making a 3point turn.

The Stelvio pass is certainly well worth driving, and even Niel, being the anti-biker that he is, admitted that he would have enjoyed being able to do it on a bike.

Next stop, Merano, which means that you drive through the Venosta valley, filled with apple orchards and vineyards, and of course surrounded by mountains. We have to admit that, arriving at Dorf Tirol, where our guesthouse is situated, we experienced quite a culture shock. This part of Northern Italy is part of South Tyrol, which means that people speak German, and everything looks like you are in Germany or Austria. And everywhere you look, you see tourists. We felt rather lost and cheated, so decided on an early supper, followed by a quiet evening in our room. Supper, however, turned into an evening of dancing with a bunch of old German tourists to the music of a local musician playing a variety of music, from typical German drinking songs on the accordion, to ‘Let’s twist again’ on the keyboard. At least my memories of the German music shows we used to get in the early days of television, allowed me to recognise Udo Jurgens’ music, and even sing along with it. J