willkommen to bolzano

We don't speak German but the people of Bolzano think we do. They ask us questions we can't answer. They say things we don't understand. And all the while they serve strange and wonderful foods that don't belong in Italy at all.

But accepted principles of geography say Bolzano sits squarely in Italy. So when people speak to us in German, and we go ahead and respond in Italian, we feel only half bad about our brutta figura. We don't intend an affront to the language of our hosts, it's just that the only phrase we know in German is that unfortunate combination of words in which a US president identified himself as a doughnut.



Bolzano is in the very north of Italy, surrounded by mountains and saturated with the flavors and traditions of neighboring Austria. The buildings, people, and foods of Bolzano are distant relatives of the cities that we've visited in southern Italy. In fact, describing the north and south of Italy as "distant relatives" could be stretching it. Bolzano is the nephew of Bari in the way your Dad's good friend from work can be your Uncle. Those kinds of relatives.

This unique mix of Italian traditions with those of its neighbors to the north render Bolzano a very festive place for a Christmas market. Who doesn't find drinking mulled wine and eating plates of steaming polenta with gorgonzola - surrounded by a dramatic crown of mountains - an incredibly festive experience? You might as well start singing "On the First Day of Christmas..." as soon as you step off the train.



When every bakery is filled with heaping mounds of sugar-glazed gingerbread and the streets are teeming with giant pretzels you feel like you've been transported to another place. A place where hearty people eat sauerkraut and giant dumplings and don't put on stilettos to swing by the grocery store.

But the secret of Christmas time in Bolzano is no secret: our train from Milan was packed solid and people had resorted to sitting in the corridors. After three+ hours on the train we all streamed off and invaded the city with our holiday joy, not stopping until we'd personally amassed several new Christmas ornaments, at least one mug of hot chocolate, and a paper bag full of cookies that - meno male - taste the way cookies are supposed to taste.



Saturday was crisp & cold, and Bolzano - with its twinkling Christmas lights and decorations - was the perfect fairytale town. It was almost as if Santa was going to come zooming over the mountains on his sleigh and make a grand entrance smack in the middle of the Christmas market. At least it seemed that way to me. Then again, a little mulled wine in the afternoon makes anything seem possible...

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.