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

The Best Made Plans of Mice and Travellers - When Things Go Wrong

We had a good morning leaving the Mondi Grundlsee Resort. Everything worked according to plan: we arose early, showered, I shaved, we dressed, packed, cleaned up our studio apartment and then headed for our last breakfast.

Chris had muesli and a pancake with jam. I had a piece of toast with cheese and ham topping and a plate of fruit. It was supposed to keep us going for most of what was left of the day. And it did, as our minds were elsewhere.
We managed to share a taxi to Bad Aussie train station with another couple, so our fare was half what it would have been. Doing good so far. Then it happened ... it all turned to shit at Salzburg.

When we arrived at Salzburg, for some reason better known to someone else, we got on the wrong train. Yes, you read that correctly. In a panic to change trains, we got on a train returning to near where we had come from and not the train to Innesbruck. So we unneedlessly loaded our baggage onto a train taking us the wrong way. After about five minutes, we realised that we had erred. Needless to say, the train's first stop was an hour out of the starting point, at Linz.

We enjoyed viewing all the Austrian countryside that we had now seen three times, as we discussed how anyone as intelligent, well educated and travelled as we are could be so bloody stupid. Then we realised that shit happens and we would just go with the flow. What else could we do?

Things got better at Linz. We had time to scratch ourselves and grab a snack and drink and when Christina told our sorry tale to the ticketing people, they put us on a train direct to Innesbruck meaning we didn't have to return to Salzburg.

We loaded our considerable amount of luggage onto the Innesbruck train and thought we were cooking with gas. That is until we got to Belzano with only five minutes to change trains for the remainder of the trip to Merano. We could do it, especially since the nice ticket conductor had told us it was leaving from platform one.

We quickly offloaded our gear and headed for platform one using two lifts (elevators), both of which were the slowest we have ever seen. But we made it to platform one with two minutes to spare only to find the train closed down.

After we heard an announcement in Italian which we deciphered to mean the Merano train would now be leaving from platform five, we rushed to the lift and headed for platform five. Guess what? We missed the bloody train by about 10 seconds. It drove off as we headed to the doors with our bags.

Shortly after I finished my display of indecent and obscene language (thank goodness nobody was nearby), we trudged back to the main station area to see if there were any later trains. There was ... exactly one hour later and I'm sitting on it while I type this blog.

I've regained my composure, gotten over my guilt about my childish outburst of bad language, and regret that we couldn't advise our resort that we will be arriving late because we don't have the phone number, can't read an Italian telephone book, and really don't give a rat's bootlace anyway.

It can only get better from here.


Robin


Traveller's rule one: Never carry more than one small suitcase and a backpack

Traveller's rule two: Never carry more than one small suitcase unless you can't avoid it

Traveller's rule three: Never carry more than a backpack unless it's absolutely essential

Traveller's rule four: Always record every telephone number you think you could possibly need in your mobile phone. I'ts much easier than trying to read phone books in foreign languages.

Grundlsee in Beautiful Austria

It's absolutely stunningly beautiful with tall, snow-capped mountains, cool, fresh water in its lake, and quaint little houses all similar in design and structure. It's Grundlsee (Lake Grundl) a small village surrounding a lake near Bad Aussee east of Salzburg in Austria. (See two photos at bottom of collage - double click photo to enlarge)

Our time share at Beach House, Coolangatta in Australia is a six berth time share which allows us a number of "points" that we can use at any other time share anywhere on planet earth. We've never stayed at Beach House, but we've used it extensively elsewhere and when we stay in a place with fewer than six berths, our points go further.

At Grundlsee we stayed for a week at the Mondi Holiday Resort in a double bed studio which had a small kitchen and all the comforts one could want.

While at Grundlsee we did a lot of walking (see photo of Christina walking along a leaf strewn track). We took a bus to Bad Aussee and bought a few things including haircuts, some shoes, and a few other odds and ends including a nice lunch.

Accompanied by two lovely German ladies, with whom we had difficulty communicating, (but never the less enjoyed each others company), we did a horse and buggy tour of Bad Mittendorf a few kilometres away from Grundlsee. The photo above shows Christina with the two horses who did the hard work pulling us around town.

Part way on our journey, which was quite cheap at 24 Euros per head, we were handed some schnapps glasses and a bottle of schnapps to do a bit of quaffing. It warmed up the whole inner being and was lovely given that it was around 4 degrees C. We also stopped at a lovely little restaurant for lunch and of course, more schnapps. I had quite a glow by the time we got back onto the buggy as did the two German ladies.

Life in a town like Grundlsee and the many other similar towns in this part of Austria must be wonderful. Locals told us the snow was late this year, but should arrive soon. It had arrived on some of the tall hills surrounding the town, but not yet fallen in the town itself. We would have loved to have seen the snow fall ... next time.

Robin