So where were we? Oh yes: Merano, Italy. On our second day there, we asked at the hotel for a lunch suggestion. Lucky for us, the recommended place was closed, and we ended up improvising. We found Castel Fragsburg at the top of a windy road outside of Merano. The posted menu looked interesting, if a bit expensive, so we decided to give it a try. We were led through a large dining room out onto a terrace with a sweeping view of the valley below. Worth the price alone.
Before we can even order the chef starts sending us little ‘greetings from the kitchen’ – tiny dishes of creative deliciousness – a martini glass of cucumber olive oil soup, eggplant carpaccio with cream cheese and flowers, an oyster on the half shell (OK so this last one didn’t interest us, but the others were heavenly).
I order two courses, one of which is an eggplant thing that usually comes with a bit of prosciutto on top. The waitress assures me that it will be no problem for the chef to make it vegetarian.
She was back a few minutes later with a question for me. “The chef wants to know if he may put some burrata on top of the eggplant dish. Is this OK?” I think maybe I have misheard her. The chef wants my permission to put one of very very favorite cheeses, a cheese you cannot properly get in Munich, on top of my main course? Yes, yes he may.
My smile is permanent by this point, and I don’t think I had even seen the bread basket yet.
Course after course of amazingly delicious food came out, including more of the chef’s ‘greetings’, such as this red currant sorbet. It was one of those meals of rare perfection, where the food was creative and interesting and painfully delicious. Every last bite.
The dessert menu looked heavenly, but we were stuffed so we politely declined (actually I agonized over the decision a bit – I’m not usually a dessert person but I was willing to do almost anything to prevent that meal from ending). Somehow our fullness didn’t stop us from downing most of the tiered tray of handmade chocolates and cookies that was presented to us. When the check came I had to stifle the urge to cry, “Here, take all my money, just tell me I can live at this table forever and ever!” On our way out we were each presented with a tiny gold-embossed case holding two chocolate truffles. I still have mine on my desk (sans truffles, natürlich). Every time I see it I am filled with great longing.
The Dolomites were the perfect place to unwind after two weeks of Oktoberfest. A friend recommended Val Gardena, Italy – about a 3-hour drive from Munich. It’s a ski resort area in the winter, and popular with hikers in the summer. Since we are now the shoulder season, we were able to get a great deal on a room with half board at Hotel Grones in the little mountain town of Ortisei (St. Ulrich in German).
Signs in the area were often posted in three languages: Italian, German, and another one which contained wacky things like ë. This turned out to be Ladin, a local language similar to Romansh (one of Switzerland’s four official languages) and about equally decipherable. At the hotel and around town we heard all three languages being spoken around us, and it made my head swim a little. Our waitress clearly preferred speaking Italian with us, while the hotel owners were happier chatting in German.
The roads were small and windy, which made for some heart-thumping every time a tourist bus came flying towards us. There were a lot of tour buses. I don’t want to imagine what it must be like in the high season.
We visited various little towns in Val Gardena (each with a cute little church and graveyard, some hotels, and at least one collapsed wooden barn). There was a little Sound-of-Music-style spinning involved. And a waist-tall squash. I’ll let the photos say the rest.
Greetings from Italy. We’re recovering from Oktoberfest in a cute mountain resort town, because the best way to get over too much German beer, pretzels and kaesespaetzle is to wash it down with Italian wine, pasta, and cheese.
I’ll be back to finish off my Oktoberfest posting in a few days. But for now, the sauna is calling me.
Jul – I’ve spent the last hour or so being super jealous of you, sucked into your old blog entries about Switzerland and happening across Chagall exhibits, big cows, and castles and such. Man. I’ve got to get out there. Could you please tell me a couple cities in Switzerland you think are the cutest?
Switzerland is all kinds of cute, and a great place to vacation. I’m having a hard time narrowing it down to just a couple cities, so I’ll name a couple in each region. Starting in the German-speaking part of the country, I’d recommend Lucerne (the wooden bridges are charming) and Bern (about as quaint as a capital city can get).
Moving on to Ticino, or the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, I’d suggest Lugano and Bellinzona (castles!) for their adorableness. Lugano (which I visited pre-blog) is a lovely lake town combining the best of Italy and Switzerland – great architecture, yummy food, and clean streets. In Francophone Swiss cities there’s also plenty of cuteness to be found, especially in Fribourg and Lausanne.
If you want to get out of the cities, the cutest parts of Switzerland overall are the mountain villages. My all-time favorite is Mürren, which is in the Bernese Oberland and is so cute it will make your cheeks hurt. The whole area is fabulous – don’t miss Trummelbach Falls or Grindelwald, either. Interlaken is the gateway to this area, and from there you can take cog-wheel trains and other quaint forms of transportation to get up to the various little villages.
But really, Switzerland is just so chock-full of cuteness it’d be impossible to get it all into one post. You’re likely to find it wherever your trip takes you.
— Ask the Expat is a new feature I’m trying out here at the blog. If you have a question for me, go to this post to find out how to submit it.
This past weekend we bummed a ride with the Munich International Ski Club for a day of skiing at Sheffau, Austria. Sheffau is just one of many entry points into the irrsinnig gross* ski area which includes 91 lifts and almost 300 km of slopes. There was lots of fresh snow, and a little too much sunshine. Very good conditions.
Sheffau isn’t quite as friendly for beginner skiers as Kitzbühel was, since there are areas where one has to ski red slopes to access other parts of the resort. Long red (middle) slopes are plentiful, and it would be easy to ski all day and never see the same slope twice. Lift lines were mixed, but we probably never waited more than 5 minutes to get on a lift.
One thing I disliked about Sheffau was the poorly-designed labeling system and map they had going on. Instead of numbering the trails, like most resorts do, the Sheffau folks decided to number the lifts. Horrible idea, given that trails don’t neatly correspond to lifts. We spent much too much time puzzling over maps. But otherwise it was a lovely day of skiing.
On Sunday we headed out of Munich with some friends to do a little hiking. The drive there took us past some beautiful scenery including green pastures and clear, aqua-colored lakes. It was not long until snow-capped peaks could be seen in the distance. It was almost as if we were back in Switzerland. The most notable difference was perhaps that along the hiking trails here you greet others with “Servus” or “Gruß Gott” rather than “Grüetzi”.
We started at the bottom of the Herzogstand and hiked for 2.5 hours up. We were rewarded with sweeping views of the Walchensee and a whole lot of mountains. At the top we dined at a mountain hut restaurant. The local food offerings varied a tiny bit from that which you would find in a Swiss mountain hut. From the vegetarian perspective, I got to eat Käsespätzle with onions rather than Rösti. And the salad did not come swimming in a foot-deep pool of dressing. And naturally, the beer was much better. I’m sure the non-vegetarian offerings were somewhat different too… at least I can say that I’d never before seen this gelatinized meat monstrosity that our German friend proudly ordered:
After lunch we rode the gondola back down to the parking lot.
We popped down to Austria for a final ski trip of the season yesterday. It’s so easy to do this that I’m having a hard time remembering that Austria is, in fact, another country. You’d think after two years in Switzerland I’d be over the novelty of popping into another country for a day trip, but you’d be wrong. What can I say? I’m easily impressed.
The time change meant we got even less precious sleep than we normally would have, but on the plus side now we can be happy that all that daylight is no longer going to waste. And, we’re finally back to our normal 6-hour time difference from the east coast of the US. Whew.
We went to the irrsinnig gross ski area called SkiWelt Wilder Kaiser Brixental, which was indeed quite sizable. The skiing was pretty good – slushy, to be sure, but that slush allowed me to ski the red slopes like a rock star, granting me the opportunity to think that my skiing skills have actually improved in the past couple seasons. The sun was brutal and relentless (some people might have called it ‘pleasant’ or even ‘beautiful’), and we probably could have spent most of the day skiing in little more than t-shirts.
Forgot to bring the camera this time, but I’ll add a photo off of the old camera phone as soon as I can figure out how to magically beam it to the computer. Or you can just get the general idea from any other photo I’ve taken skiing.
We would be awfully bummed about moving away from Switzerland in the middle of ski-season… if we hadn’t moved to Munich. The oh-so-conveniently-located Austrian Alps are close enough for easy day-trip skiing. Unfortunately this season hasn’t been as snowy as we would like, but the Austrians seem to be pretty good at filling in the gaps with man-made snow.
There seem to be dozens of resorts to choose from. In January we hit Kaltenbach, and just yesterday we were in Alpbachtal. Kaltenbach had a nice variety of runs, and our enjoyment was greatly enhanced by a covey of skiing witches. Alpbachtal was a little short on the blue (easy) slopes, but I managed to stay entertained for the entire day (and conditions were even good enough for me to successfully navigate a couple red runs). We also enjoyed riding the charmingly antique single-chair lift.
While lift tickets seem to have comparable prices in Austria and Switzerland, equipment rental is noticeably cheaper in Austria (skiing pro that I am, naturally I own my own, but Scott is still renting until he finds a snowboard he can fall in love with that doesn’t have a wild west theme painted on it). From what I’ve seen, Switzerland has more ski areas that are easily reachable by train than Austria does. We’ve heard that Germany’s Garmisch is a quick and easy train ride away, but haven’t had the chance to try it out yet.
Last Sunday afternoon we headed down from Murren and went to visit the Trummelbach Falls. This is a series of waterfalls roaring through a mountain, runoff from the melting glaciers of the Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau. It is truly spectacular. The dim lighting combined with our puny little camera made it impossible to capture even a hint of how beautiful the various interior falls were.
Trummelbach Falls are reachable via bus (7 minutes) from Lauterbrunnen, and admission is CHF 12 (definitely worth it, despite what the disgruntled German tourists in front of us in line may have thought when they found out the ticket price).
Kind of reminded me of Ruby Falls. OK, not really.
