Merano Italy ... A Very Liveable Place

While we visited numerous lovely places during our overseas jaunt, all lovely for different reasons, I think perhaps my favourite was Merano in Italy. Merano is a city set among vineyards, apple orchards and snow-capped mountains and has an ambience difficult to explain. It feels comfortable, homely, just right.

Early after our arrival I realised that although we were in Italy, the Austrian influence was very strong indeed. Dual names were used for many places and Austrian coats of arms appeared more often than I would have expected. There were few people we found who spoke English, but one of them I enquired of about the Austrian influence in Italy. He told me that Merano had been part of Austria before the First World War and that after the war, Italy had taken over the city. However, the Austrians who live there, which is the majority, have never let go of their language or Austrianness, despite almost 100 years since WW1.

One of the things I liked most about Merano is that the city has been built around the existing vineyards and orchards so that there are vast hectares of them outside the city and on some of the hill slopes. Unlike many cities, they haven't bulldozed their agricultural asset to build concrete and metal structures.

Many of the houses and buildings on farmlets are hundreds of years old, made from stone and cement. Some have religious boxes with a cross bearing their Saviours' image in crucifixion with candles burning. Such faith!

The town centre is nicely laid out with covered walkway arches through which the crowds throng from shop to shop, all classy, nicely decked out shops, restaurants and hotels.

As the locals follow the very sensible practice of having an extended lunch break during which everything stops except the restaurants, the latter are chock block full of Meranians (?) drinking wine and eating scrumptious foods.

If you ever visit northern Italy, try to get to Merano ... it's a lovely city with much to see and do. If you ski ... on snow, you can do that all year round.

Robin

PS: Photos posted soon

From Rome to Palermo in Eight Days

Our tour of Sicily began in Rome and over 10 days took us down the west coat of Italy through the Bay of Naples, Sorrento, Isle of Capri, and Salerno to Taormina on the eastern tip of Sicily.


In Rome, we took some private time to walk around the Vatican which was only a few hundred metres from where we were staying. It has an ancient security wall around its perimeter and although aged, is still very impressive. Inside, it is spacious with lovely gardens and multiple buildings. (Photo of Chris at Vatican main entry - second left)

As part of our tour, we visited the Vatican Museum which is chock full of religious artifacts going back thousands of years. Most notable are the dozens of embroidered carpets representing decades, if not lifetimes of work for their artists. Truly beautiful works, like much of the work done throughout history in the belief that they were being done in the service of one or other gods. Zeuss for example; ancient Romans slaughtered 400 oxen per year to keep Zeus on side. It seems that Zeuss didn't reciprocate, so eventually he went the way of all gods ... into the wastebin of rationality. I wonder how long it will be before the current gods are seen for what they are and also discarded.


As part of our tour, We dined in a few nice restaurants experiencing the Italian/Sicilian cuisine, walked the local streets looking into the large number of high range fashion shops and more, scurried out of the way of Italian drivers, and (Robin) noticed that there are so many lean, shapely women who jam themselves into tight, tight jeans and wear long leather boots. Delightful!


The Isle of Capri is beautiful with lovely views of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Clearly a tourist destination, it has numerous old, stately hotels and charming shops (Photo of Robin in cake shop). We visited the "famous gardens" and Faraglioni Rocks and a funicular ride was included (inclined railway).


Taormina, Enna, Erice, Agrigento, and Palermo were all worth visiting, but Taormina was our favourite. It exists on different levels up the hillside.


At Palermo we did a guided tour of the Valley of Temples, considered the finest Greek sanctuary in Sicily and rivaling those of Athens in their grandeur. (see photo). Our Sicilian tourist guides had an annoying language characteristic that seems to be universal among Sicilian tour guides (who taught them English?). They seem to add a after everything so a sentence in Sicilian English could sound like: "The Romans-a came here-a about 2,500 years ago-a. I have no idea where this peculiarity of speech comes from, but it seemed that they were adding it intentionally to emphasise its existence. Very peculiar.


Italian cities are obviously overcrowded with thousands and thousands of small cars crammed into everything that looks like a parking space. There are literally thousands of SMART cars (Mercedes Benz) and they park everywhere ... perfect for that type of environment and no doubt run on the smell of an oily rag. (see photo) I'd love one to drive about Alice Springs. The lack of car parking space and density of population in high-rise buildings has also created cities that are absolutely filthy, mor like some of the Arab countries we have visited than like Germany, which is quite the opposite.


We flew from Palermo to Munich and after staying overnight in a ridiculously expensive hotel (conveniently situated near the airport), we took a train from Munich to Bad Aussee and thence a taxi to the Mondi Resort at nearby Grundlsee.


More about Grundlsee next post.






Robin