The Mighty Mountains

It has been almost 10 years again since I spent holidays in the Alps, skiing in Mayrhofen back then. And the last time I was in the Alps in summertime was 1986 at the sweet age of 11 years. I liked it back then, but I must admit that I forgot how very beautiful this area is!!

At the foot of the Alps, close to Kufstein and the Austrian border.

We went via Rosenheim, Kufstein and Innsbruck to the Brenner-Autobahn. In Kufstein we could already buy a 10-days-ticket for the Austrian Autobahn, around 15 Euros each it was if I remember correctly. We put this thing onto our windscreens and off we went. Brenner, here we come! Thank goodness it was a fast and painless road to ride, despite of lots of trucks climbing the bends. In this heat you just want to kill as many miles as possible, only stopping for filling up with litres and litres of mineral water and some light food. That day we went to Klausen on the Italian side of the Alps. “Gasthof zum Lamm” was our home for one night. It seems that they don’t have a website unfortunately, so I cannot link to them here. Stay and food was good, though!

We were wondering how life is here in this part of Italy, which is practically still Austrian-/German-speaking and you do not see much of Italian culture either. The landlady told us that it is indeed all more Austrian traditions in that area. When she was a child, she learnt both, German and Italian at school. Nowadays, lessons there are  still held in German, however you do not only learn Italian, but also English. And that mainly because of all the tourists passing. The Italians further South do only learn English as a second language – other languages are apparently a bonus at school.

Taking a break at the roadside of Brenner-Autobahn

The rest of the evening we spent resting. The next days were supposed to be even hotter, but our next station on the day to come would be Verona, where we would stay for two full days.