a saturday afternoon

Winding our way north on the autostrada, we're on our way to explore the hills and valleys between Bolzano and Merano, Itay. This is not far from where we live, but given that we don't own a car and seldom venture outside the city, it feels like another world.

We leave at 12:30 and just 45 minutes later, find ourselves in a small bar in the little town of Appiano for lunch. They have a hearty orzo soup on the stove, perfect with the bread and cold cuts... speck, salami, and prosciutto.



We then head out to explore:

Stunning steeple, you'll see it again later from the Boymont Castle tower.

some other expats exploring the area

a farmer taking in the apple harvest

can you get any more quaint?

For some reason, we enjoy walking through cemeteries. This one is full of German surnames due to the fact that this part of Italy was part of Austria before World War I. In fact, there is a separatist movement here and German is the first language of the region.


We then enjoyed an hour long hike up to one of the many castles.

click to enlarge if you would like to read the text

I love photographs through windows... imagining how long this view has been captured in this way...



From the top of the tower you can see the layout of the castle ruins and the beautiful surrounding country side.





From here, we went to Merano, which was absolutely gorgeous... but I left my camera in the car. I guess you'll just have to go there yourself. ;)