Sylvie's Travels Home

September 17 and 18, 2024

I slept for 9 hours and I would have slept longer if Pogo had not woken me up. 

We met Derrick and Deidre at 8:30am for breakfast. It was included with our stay and the selection of bread, cheeses, fruits, cereals, juices, etc was great. They also made us eggs. 

We packed our bags, walk around town then left the hotel at 11am to go to the train station to take 2 trains to Bolzano in Italy. It was another stunning ride through the mountainous countryside. 

We arrived at the hotel a little after 2pm and only D&D’s room was ready. 

Derrick decided to go bike around town and Pogo, Deidre and I went to the gorgeous hotel bar to have a drink and a bite to eat. 

We finally decided to go to the museum to see Otzi the Iceman, the 5000 year old remains of a man from the copper age. 

The Iceman

It was really interesting. We slowly walked back to the hotel, stopping to purchase lipstick and perfume for Deidre. 

We rested a little bit, meaning Pogo took a nap and I put several compresses on my giant sty which I’ve had for 2 1/2 weeks now and had decided yesterday to finally turn white. Just in time to meet our VBT Tour guides and fellow bikers. Great!

I also did a quick Duolingo Spanish lesson in order not to lose my 284 day streak. Do I speak any Spanish? Not at all! but I’m doing great on the app…

We met at 6pm and walked to the funicular to have dinner at Pippo’s, a restaurant recommendation by one of Pogo’s Big Dog friend. The food and drinks were excellent!  Hugo drinks for everyone and we shared a creamy pasta dish made with a cheese fondue, spinach and truffle and a veal dish on a bed of spinach with more truffle (truffle season!). 

The steep walk back, about 1/2 mile long) was challenging for my knees especially with a full belly. It was really nice to see Bolzano from that high shimmering with all the streetlights and the full moon. 

We came back to our room to a nice plate of desserts which we had to eat,  not wanting to insult anyone. 

Next morning, Pogo and Derrick went biking then we went to a little cafe for breakfast and sat outside to people watch. We walked to Bunker H, a bunker built by prisoners for the Nazis to hide during WWII, while the people in town were not protected. The tour was done in the dark with 2 lamps only. It was very interesting to see. It was later used by the Italian Army to store weapons during the Cold War. After years of cleaning, it is now use for cultural events. They also had a mural competition a few years ago. We also found out that in the 1920, Mussolini took away the city of Bolzano from Austria and told all the people to either leave or to start speaking only Italian and to change their names for Italian names. That’s why nowadays, every signs or street names are in German and Italian.

We had a bite on our way back to our hotel and met our VBT group for the first time at 2:30pm. They are 4 more people from Vermont (Manchester) in our group.

At 3:30pm, we went to get our bikes and did a warm up ride of about 6 miles. I realized that it will be difficult to take pictures as I will be using an app on my phone for directions and my phone will be mounted on the bike.

Pogo and I went for a cocktail at the bar then had a glass of prosecco and hors d’oeuvres with the group afterwards and then dinner at the hotel restaurant.