guten giorno

In dwelling on the hike we took last weekend I neglected to dwell on the uniqueness of the area of Italy in which we were traveling. First, I would like to clarify that Alto Adige / Sudtirol is indeed in Italy. But you wouldn't know it. The people here speak German. They eat German. And they look German.

They are Italian because after World War I this area of Austria became a part of Italy and today the cities here have two names; one in German and one in Italian. Children here learn both languages in school. People in restaurants and on the street are likely to speak to you first in German but can drop to English or Italian easily.



But the chatter you hear on the streets and the music you hear in the establishments is most decidely German. After acclimating to a new place over a period of months and attaining a certain degree of comfort with the language and the culture it is quite surreal to plop yourself in what is technically the same country but feels very, very different.

The architecture and the wardrobe is what one might call "alpine." Envision those three quarter pants that Heidi's father certainly wore in the famous fairy tale... people here are still wearing them. And everyone wears blue work aprons, even on the streets. There are wool sweaters and bib dresses, and lots and lots of hats. Which, of course, they remove before entering church mass on Sundays.



This is, after all, where you'll find the Alpe di Suisi (Seiser Alm), Europe's largest alpine plateau. The grasslands are gorgeous, dotted with small wooden cottages and carpeted with wildflowers. The cottages have rocks piled on the roof for reasons unknown to us and the grasslands edging our trails were springy with peat. A shock to feet used to Milan's paved expanses. The air was crisp and ought to be -- we had to ride a gondola-style ski lift to ear-popping heights to arrive at this place.



We had strudel in our back packs. Large hunks of it. It was wonderful and we found it in a grocery store that had far more choices and a fair bit more heartiness than the Italian grocery stores we frequent three hours south-west. Say what you will about Italian's enjoying their food, those that speak German seem to enjoy it a whole lot more.

Our last dinner in town, celebrated after a healthy round of steam room and sauna, was eaten in a room supported by thick wood beam timbers and filled with hearty laughter and beer steins. The people around us were speaking a language we couldn't understand, and the music carried on without telling its story to us. Trust me when I say that our Italian is not so bad that we can't keep up with Italian chatter... It's just that in this part of Italy, the Italians speak another language.