Let’s Do BelFAST

July 15, 2023

Yesterday was our first day in Ireland, but it felt like at least three days because of the absurd travel itinerary.  We met Tyler and Morgan at the airport bar around 1:45 pm on Friday and boarded our plan two hours later.  Serendipitously, their seats were right in front of ours; not that it mattered much as we all focused on pretending to sleep in the hopes of actually dozing off for a bit.  Our flight was supposed to get into Dublin at 5:00 am, but we arrived at 4:30 am on Saturday, at which point the pilot came on the loudspeaker to announce that the Dublin airport didn’t open until 5:00 am, so we would just have to sit and wait on the tarmac.  Shockingly, that was the least of our airport delays.  The first bag from our flight hit the carousel at 5:33.  We finally got our bags after 6:00.  Then it was on to the car rental counter, which took nearly an hour.  Finally, we got on our way to Belfast, where we showed up two hours later despite being unable to check into our hotel until almost 3:00 pm.  Yet, despite the gauntlet it took to get here, we had a great day.

On the way into town, we saw a number of impactful militant murals.  The neighborhood was still shuttered when we made our first stopped at C.S. Lewis Square in East Belfast.  It was peppered with statues of Narnians, and the experience literally brought me to tears.  Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, or perhaps it was the fact that C.S. Lewis is one of the most influential and formative literary forces in my life.  Regardless, it was a cathartic experience.  While in East Belfast, we swung by where Van Morrison was born at 125 Hyndford Street, and drove past the Hollow, immortalized in his classic song Brown Eyed Girl, before moving on to the main attraction.

We arrived in downtown Belfast around 9:30 am and made our way to The Merchant Hotel.  The Italianate building feels like something out of a different world.  It was originally the headquarters of the Ulster Bank, which was built on the site in the mid-1800s.  When the designs were first shown at the 1858 London Architectural Exhibition, the literary magazine Athenaeum described them as “very commendable, earnest, massive, rich, and suitable.”  More than a century later, founding member of the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society C.E.B. Brett said the building offered “every inducement to linger and ponder on wealth and its advantages.  The hotel was opened in 2006, and the Victorian grandeur throughout is something to behold - from the grand dining room and massive chandelier to the beautiful cocktail bar.  We weren’t staying in the hotel for long, but it’s the type of place that makes you want to stay longer and just enjoy being there.

After dropping our bags, we took to the streets.  The biggest shock to us was that everything was closed.  Shops, tourist attractions, you name it.  Virtually nothing opened up until close to noon, which made exploring the city during the morning both challenging and depressing.  After a failed attempt at visiting St. Anne’s Cathedral - we showed up at 9:45 and it opened at 10:30 - we blew through some of the key sights in the city.  The Albert Clock Tower is Belfast’s answer to the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  It was erected in 1865 in honor of Queen Victoria’s late husband.  As locals like to say, “Old Albert not only has the time, he also has the inclination.”  We also stopped through St. George’s Market, which is Belfast’s oldest continually operating market (est. 1896).  Right inside the door was an amazing fishmonger shop with all sorts of incredible local seafood.  There were also a number of great looking food vendors, but the vast majority of the market was taken up by standard shops selling chachkies.  From there, we walked by the city’s Renaissance-style City Hall and the Grand Opera House, which opened in 1895 but had to be restored in the 1990s following IRA attacks.  By 11:15 am, we were out of things to do and the place we had picked for lunch - John Long’s Fish & Chips - didn’t open until noon.  So we bought a coffee at a Starbucks, posted up in a corner, and took a power nap for 30 minutes in the hopes of beating the jet lag and making it through the rest of the day’s itinerary.

At lunch, we got regular (read king-sized) servings of fried fish accompanied by subpar thick-cut chips.  The fish was great and served as the perfect introduction to the culinary scene of Northern Ireland.  Afterwards, we made a quick stop in the Crown Liquor Saloon, which is one of Belfast’s most famous bars.  It was refurbished in the late 19th century and includes finishing like gunmetal plates from the Crimean War.  Legend has it that Patrick Flanagan argued with his wife over what to name the pub, with his wife prevailing and naming it the Crown in honor of the British monarchy.  Flanagan, however, placed a crown mosaic underfoot so that customers would step on it every day.

Once we finally got checked into our hotel around 3:00 pm, we got ready for the evening and headed out to the Titanic Quarter.  The focal point of the area is Titanic Belfast - a massive interactive museum about all things Titanic.  The building is massive and uber-modern.  Each of the four corners are the size of the front end of the Titanic itself!  The museum was incredibly well done and took you from the establishment of industry in Belfast to building the Titanic and its disastrous voyage all the way to its discovery at the bottom of the ocean decades later.  The entire museum is so well done and was more impactful that I anticipated.  For me, the highlight of the museum was the violin that Wallace Hartley played to calm the passengers while the ship sank.  It took everything I had to not bawl while standing there looking at that instrument and thinking about him standing on the deck of the Titanic playing “Nearer, my God, to thee,” as it sank, knowing he was going down with it but seeking to comfort those around him.  We also got to stand in the dry dock they used to build the Titanic and the Olympic, which are unfathomably huge before ending our jaunt through the quarter at Drawing Room Two.  That exquisitely maintained and refurbished bar and restaurant is where the Titanic and the Olympic - and many other Harland & Wolff ships - were designed.  What’s more, we got to sit there and drink one of the last cocktails they served on the Titanic - the Romaine Punch.  Tyler, Kati, and I all opted to try it, while Morgan went with the classic Pornstar Martini.  The Romaine Punch was a really interesting, lower-ABV take on a sour, made with a mix of rum, pinot grigio, lemon, orange, sugar, and an egg white, topped with prosecco.

For dinner, we ventured outside of the city center a bit to go to Shu, which is named after the ancient Egyptian god of atmosphere and set in an old Victorian house.  We ate in the cocktail bar in the basement and it was exceptional, which is a bit ironic because Shu was my third-choice for a restaurant in Belfast.  I had wanted to get into one of two Michelin-starred restaurants, but apparently all of the fancy restaurants in the country shut down and take large chunks of July off!  We started out with a Korean fried chicken appetizer that was the star of the whole show.  Our mains were also great.  Kati got the roast duck breast with shallot and beer cream, green onion, and potato rösti, while I got the pork belly, potato gratin, cider raisins, cauliflower, and black pudding.  Morgan opted for the corn-fed chicken breast with risotto, sweet corn, basil, and ricotta, while Tyler picked the rump of Irish lamb, new season peas and broad beans, bacon, and mint.  The cocktails were also really great.  The most interesting of the cocktails we got was Kati’s second - Jimmy the Bull.  It had Kadoo 8-year aged rum, byrrh, bramble liqueur, Cio Ciaro, beet, and lime.  It was unlike anything I’ve tasted before and had a dark read, almost black, color to it.

After stuffing ourselves, we decided to check out a rooftop bar I had heard was great.  It’s called The Perch, and I couldn’t find much information on it anywhere online, but it seemed really popular.  As it turns out, there was a good reason for that - we were at least 10-15 years older than 85% of the clientele, with the one exception of the 50-year-old birthday party.  The woo girls were out in force and already three sheets to the wind when we showed up at 8:30.  Our table wasn’t ready, so we grabbed seats at the bar to get a drink.  The music was so loud that you couldn’t hear the person next to you talk and the gaggle of girls behind us was rowdy.  Several times, one of them grabbed the back of Kati’s bar seat to drop it like it was hot!  We got drinks that were mediocre at best, laughed about the absurdity of the place, and watched the woo girls around us do their thing.  At one point, the birthday girl walked around the bar with her phone on a selfie stick and took pictures with just about everyone in the bar!  One of the funniest parts about the experience is that our Uber driver from Shu to The Perch knew exactly what we were walking into and didn’t say a word!  He was a funny guy and the source of a classic expression we will undoubtedly be using for the rest of the trip.  Traffic was repeatedly held up on our mile(ish) trip because people would just saunter across the street despite oncoming traffic.  Tyler asked him if pedestrians have the right of way in Ireland and he said, “Absolutely not!”  Nevertheless, they don’t seem to care.

We were all fading fast while we finished our drinks, so we left the woo girls and strolled through town back to our hotel.  It was an eye opening experience because of the juxtaposition between walking those same streets at 11:00 am and 9:30 pm.  During our initial exploration of the city, virtually everything was shuttered and much of the town looked abandoned.  In the evening, however, the streets were full, the music was blasting, and everywhere you looked was a vibrant corner of activity.  Voodoo - a hardcore Irish punk bar - was blasting heavy metal for their tattooed clientele, while White’s (est. 1630) had a more laidback atmosphere befitting the oldest pub in Belfast.Other highlights included the Feisty Goat and a neon street with a lit up sign that said, “There’s only seven types of rain in Belfast.  Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday . . .”  Had we not been shot from the trip over and captive to jet lag, we would have had an epic night exploring the bars and drinking pints with the locals.  As it was, however, we retreated to our Victorian hotel rooms and quickly passed out in our plush beds, closing the door on our visit to downtown Belfast.

Reluctant Return Home

September 24, 2018

Our last day has been all travel. Luckily, our flight didn’t leave until 12:15 and our hotel was at the airport, so we were able to sleep in a little bit and kind of recover from our last long day. They say that German efficiency is something to behold, but during our two days in Germany it was nothing but a #clustermess. Our process of getting through the airport was no different. My parents went to check in first, while we gathered the rest of our belongings, and were forced to also collect our boarding passes. That posed a problem considering that we weren’t with them and needed our passes to do anything. Then, we tried to check our bags but were told that we needed to go to a special line for checking in with a family, even though we were already checked in and just needed to give them our bags. That, however, was just the beginning of the fun.

The first security line we went through was the German equivalent of TSA. As we approached the more than 20 lines they funnel everyone through, there was just a giant, unorganized mass of people standing there without direction or purpose. We were lucky enough to be able to push our way through the crowd to the immediate entry for families line, but that’s when we identified the root of the problem. The security lines weren’t moving at all. For no apparent reason except that nobody knew what was going on - passengers or staff. Virtually everyone was having to open their bags and pull out bottle after bottle of liquids, and then go back through the security check. We stood there for 20 minutes without moving an inch!

The next line we confronted was passport control, which went quickly thanks to the fact that we were wheeling Witten in a stroller and got to bypass the long queue. Then, however, we had to get on a train to another terminal and go through another security checkpoint for all flights into the United States . . . because going through two security checkpoints instead of one helps limit terrorism that much more. When we made it through the second checkpoint, we were starving and learned that there was no food at the gates, so we had to go back through the checkpoint, get some food, and then go through again! Thank God we got to the airport at 10:00, because we were definitely pushing it to make our flight, even with the priority granted to families with young children!

It was a ten-hour flight back home, and it felt far longer than that. Witten refused to sleep a wink, so neither Kati nor I got any sleep either, though I tried for a while. Once we got into Charlotte airspace, our pilot told us that there was some construction at the airport, so it may take longer to land and taxi to the gate. We then proceeded to make at least five or six circles before heading in for a landing. I’m not sure what was going on - whether it was the altitude, the quick turns, or the pressure - but every baby on the plane, including Witten, started screaming uncontrollably. Then, right before we were landing, Witten threw up chocolate (M&Ms) all over herself and Kati! Thank God it happened right before we landed and not earlier because Kati didn’t have a change of clothes that she could switch into, and Witten had already soiled one set of clothes earlier in the flight. Suffice it to say, the trip back was the low light of our vacation. By the time we managed to get through passport control and claim our bags, we were all done and ready to be home, if just to lay down and get some rest. Still, it was an incredibly trip!

A Nightmare of a Day But a Great Time at Oktoberfest

September 23, 2018

Walking into Oktoberfest

What should have been a quick and easy exit out of Italy with a brief stop in at Oktoberfest quickly turned into quite a nightmare of a day (with a few great highlights). The drive from Lago di Braies to Munich should take just under four hours. We were set to leave at 8:00, which would put us in right around noon for lunch and allow us to spend all afternoon at Oktoberfest. Witten threw the first wrench in that plan when she decided to throw a fit about letting me help her brush her teeth. We spent almost 30 minutes waiting for her to calm down and let me help. Her little temper tantrum didn’t throw off our schedule too much though, and we got onto the road at 8:30.

Getting through Austria was less than easy because, for whatever reason, there was a lot of traffic. Crossing the Austria-Germany border also took an exhorbitantly long time for no good reason at all. Things only got worse from there. By 1:00 p.m., were finally about an hour outside of Munich, when we stopped for a quick bathroom break at a highway rest stop. That’s when I learned a valuable lesson and must confess a certain degree of ignorance and stupidity. The car wouldn’t start after our bathroom break. We had plenty of gas and I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. Like I told my dad, the only message that the car had given me was that I needed to add some blue washer fluid to the tank. Who knew that “AdBlu” didn’t mean washer fluid, but a clear liquid that diesel cars use? Or that European cars are designed to not start if the AdBlu falls below a certain level? I called the rental agency (Europcar) and spent far too long trying to explain where we were to a German that couldn’t understand my awful pronunciation of German places. He was sending a repair vehicle to help us and said that it would take at least 60-90 minutes to get there. As I was walking back to the car, frustrated with the ongoing delay caused by my stupidity, I found a German guy standing by my dad in the driver’s seat, doing something on his phone. I got in and, suddenly, the van started up again! Apparently this guy had a little diagnostic box that he had hooked up to the van and reset the “AdBlu” error message so that we could start the car. It was an amazing turn of luck!

We quickly started off toward the nearest gas station to get some AdBlu and my dad called Europcar back to tell them that we didn’t need the repair team after all. The Europcar guy wasn’t thrilled about what had happened because what the Good Samaritan did for us was “technically against the law.” Having learned my important lesson about diesel cars, we added enough AdBlu to get us to Munich and continued to trudge through the traffic going the same way as we were.

It was 3:00 p.m. by the time we finally got to the airport, but that wasn’t the end of our delays. We still got a bit turned around looking for the Airport Hilton, took a nice drive through some non-road areas around the hotel, found a gas station, and finally got the rental car returned. By 3:30, we were checked into the hotel, and by 4:00 we were on the S-Bahn into Munich. The train ride took about 50 minutes, at which point we stepped out onto the streets of Munich with throngs of people dressed in Lederhosen and Dirndel flocking to Theresienwiese (i.e., the fairgrounds). As we crossed the bridge out of the train station, there was a police van with bull horns blaring German music as the crowds walked by. The walk from Hackerbrücke to Theresienwiese took less than ten minutes, and then we were there! It was just as magnificent as I remembered, and as “state fair tacky.” Witten loved all of it, and we quickly got her a giant horse gingerbread cookie to wear around her neck.

At Oktoberfest

Our first stop was at the Paulaner tent. We found a table tucked back in the corner of one of the boxes and got a big pretzel, but then spent 30 minutes trying to get one of the beer maid’s attention to get drinks. The frustration finally became unbearable and I set of to (successfully) procure us a table in the middle of everything. By that time, however, it was 5:15 and we were told that Witten had to leave the tent by 6:00 p.m. We each got a mass, downed them, listened to some great renditions of American classics (Country Road, Sweet Caroline,Will You Be My Girl), met a lovely Australian couple, and saw some drunkards get kicked out of the tent before leaving to walk past “Pass Out Hill” and get some food. We grabbed some bratwursts from one of the many food stalls, along with some candied macadamia nuts and then headed on to find another Biergarten. We settled at Spaten for another mass and narrowly prevented a hooligan from stealing Kati’s full beer while she ran Witten to the bathroom. So ended our evening at Oktoberfest, but not our night in Munich.

One of my mom’s high school classmates - Louis Nebelsick - lives in Munich and we called him to meet up for some dinner. We met Louis outside of the Hotel Senator and then rushed over to Augustiner Braü München in an effort to escape the impending storm. Louis is the quintessential professorial type, showing up a little frazzled, donning a black button up with a Tweety-Bird tie, and a European-style hat that looked a bit like a pork pie. The food at Augustiner (schnitzel and sausages) was great, as was the beer. Louis ordered everything for us in perfect German, including a “ladies beer” (i.e., a Hefeweizen) for Kati. Louis is a fascinating guy. He spent seven years working in Transylvania, is a professor in Warsaw, lives in Munich, and is about to start a dig in Como. We had a blast talking to him and, on top of all of it, the the table behind us was also American. One of the guys was from New Orleans and his wife was from Kentucky. She went to UK, but had three older sisters who all went to the University of Louisville, so was prohibited from wearing blue or cheering for the Cats.

At 9:15, it was still pouring down rain so Louis put us in a cab headed to the Ostbahnhof station. We got on the S1 to the airport, which should have taken just over an hour. At 10:20, however, we found ourselves standing on the Moosach platform filled with people, but no train. There had been some announcement in German and then everyone was required to get off of the train. We waited ten minutes for the next train to the airport, only to see the same thing happen again. This time, however, I talked to one of the S-Bahn workers that got off of the second train and he told me that the trains were terminating there because there was a power line down from the storm and that line wasn’t running any further.

By this time, two young girls from Gettysburg College that were studying abroad - one in Rome and the other in southern France - had kind of latched onto us because they were trying to make a 6:00 a.m. flight out the next morning so that they could get to classes on Monday. It was still pouring down rain, so I ran into a nearby hotel and asked if they could help us get a taxi. When they said that they could, I went back and our whole entourage fled to the hotel as well. The taxi company, however, would not send a taxi for us because they didn’t have any taxis equipped with car seats and wouldn’t pick up a baby without one. He suggested that we take the U-Bahn back into the city and try to catch the S8 to the airport instead. We did just that, taking the S3 back to Marienplatz and then switching to the S8 for the long ride back to the airport. We finally got back to the hotel around 12:30 a.m. and needed to immediately go to sleep. Witten, however, was so overtired (she hadn’t taken a nap or slept at all) that she refused to sleep in her crib and insisted on sleeping with us . . . and, somehow, taking up the whole bed! It was a long day and a long night, but we still had a really great time in Munich.

La Nostra Avventura Inaspettata a San Candido

September 22, 2018

Witten Hiking Around Lago di Braies

The original plan for today was to spend the day hiking. We were going to do a moderate 8.4 mile hike along a spectacular mountain ridge at 2,300 meters, skirt the Tirana di Rozes, pass a derelict wartime hospital from 1917, and hike through a short tunnel that was used during World Wars I and II. The weather, however, looked questionable for the first time on our trip, and everyone was a bit taxed after two long weeks and a big hike yesterday, so we decided to call an audible and skip the hike in favor for a more relaxing day.

My dad and Kati were exhausted and wanted to sleep in a little bit, so my mom, Witten, and I got some breakfast together and then went hiking around the lake again. We did not, however, do the whole hike. Rather, we walked halfway around and then retraced our steps so we avoided the hills and stairs that we would have encountered had we done the whole loop. Witten thoroughly enjoyed throwing rocks into the lake, and my mom found her a walking stick that she quickly became obsessed with.

After a leisurely morning, we set out to explore a nearby town - San Candido a/k/a Innichen. San Candido is in the Puster Valley, on the Drava River, has a population of a little over 3,000 people, and hosts Italy’s International Snow Sculpture Festival each year. We went looking for wine, but stayed because it’s a great little town with a lot to offer.

Cemetery at the Collegiata di San Candido

For example, the Innichen Abbey (i.e., the Collegiata di San Candido) - a former Benedictine monastery - was founded in the 8th century and rebuilt in the 12th and 13th centuries. Though the exterior and interior are both very plain and bare, it is one of the most important Romanesque buildings in the Eastern Alps. More impressive than the abbey itself, were the “cemeteries” within its walls. I’ve never seen graves quite like these. They were square plots with iron monument markers that had each been planted with beds of flowers that appeared to be well-tended. It was pretty neat, as was the nearby Chiesa di Santa Michele Arcangelo that exemplifies Austrian churches and religious architecture.

The town is really quaint and the center is lined with little shops and restaurants, which we spent most of the morning exploring before stopping into an Austrian-style restaurant at the end of the main drag. Kati was thrilled to have the opportunity to sample some of the local cheeses from a creamery in the next town over, along with a variety of local meats and salami.

On our walk back from lunch, my dad noticed a summer toboggan run standing above the town, so we went over to check it out. Kati and I had previously agreed that if we ever saw another summer toboggan run, we would do it, and we did. My dad wasn’t feeling great, so my mom, Kati, Witten, and I took the ski lift up to the top. Witten loved the ride up and was thrilled to find a kid’s paradise at the top. The lift was actually a lot higher than we had expected, so we didn’t have too much time to spend up there, but we did make time to jump on one of the built-in trampolines with Witten. Then it was time to take on the “Fun Bob.” The track drops 1,030 feet over the course of a mile-long track, and you can reach speeds of over 20 miles per hour! Witten 

Lago di Braies

Upon our return to Pragser Wildsee, we did some more relaxing, took pictures around the lake, and just generally enjoyed our surroundings. At 7:00 - following afternoon drinks - we sat down in the dining room for an extra special meal. As it turns out, the hotel has a larger, fixed menu on Saturday nights. We started with some prosecco and an enlarged salad bar, followed by consume with vegetables, risotto with asparagus and cheese, and Beef Wellington, all of which we paired with a very good 2014 Lagrein. Witten, however, did not make it past the consume. She exploded, so Kati and I rushed up to put her to bed before rejoining my parents for the close of our meal, which ended with a bang or, more appropriately, a flame. I asked our waiter (in Italian) what “Zuppa Inglese” was, and he described it (also in Italian) as being kind of like tiramisu without the coffee. That is not, however, how I would describe what came out. Another one of the waiters came out parading a giant, flaming cake-looking thing that they then proceeded to cut up and distribute. English Soup turns out to be more like a Baked Alaska than tiramisu. It was cake with multiple flavors of ice cream baked into it, along with fruit. I’d never had anything quite like that, but it was very good and marked a great exclamation point to a very unique experience in the Dolomites.

"Non Abbiate Paura"

September 21, 2018

Witten, Mom, & Me at the Start of Our Hike

One of the reasons that I was so excited to go to Lago di Braies was because of the exceptional hiking in the Dolomites. There are hundreds of trails meandering through the Dolomities, connecting the various towns and other landmarks, with each one denoted by a red-white-red blaze, often with a trail number emblazoned over it. Rather than identify distances, the trail markers and signs provide time estimates to get to various locations.

The Tre Cime di Lavoredo (the “Three Peaks of Lavaredo”) are one of the best-known mountain groups in the Alps, and one of the most photographed mountain clusters in the world. Like many of the peaks in the Dolomites, these three peaks - Cima Piccola (“Little Peak”), Cima Grande (“Big Peak”), and Cima Ovest (“Western Peak”) - are made of layered dolostone. Until 1919, they formed part of the border between Italy and Austria. Now, however, they lie wholly within Italy but still stand as the linguistic boundary between the German-speaking and Italian-speaking portions of Italy. The tallest of the three peaks reaches 9,839 feet and its north face - first scaled in 1933 after an ascent time of 3 days and 2 nights - is still considered one of the great north faces for climbing in the Alps.

The drive from Lago di Braies to the Tre Cime Loop Trail was treacherous. It was only about 15 miles of driving, but took almost an hour to make the drive because of the hairpin turns and roads that sometimes reached a 16% grade! On the way up we drove past what appeared to be two teams of cross-country skiers - one men’s team and one women’s team - that were on roller skis going up the mountain. Thinking about their trek up the mountain still amazes me. I definitely couldn’t do that, even if I was in peak shape!

Tre Cime di Lavaredo

There are a number of alpine huts along the trails through the park (and the rest of the Dolomites) that serve as rest houses, restaurants, and safe places for hikers to weather storms. We started our trek from one of these huts - Rifugio Auronzo - and set out up the 105, which makes up about ⅔ of the loop trail around the Tre Cime. It was really cool to see the Tre Cime from 360 degrees, over the course of the day. About an hour into our hike, we came across a lovely little stone shepherd’s hut and cafe where we got a few beers and a fresh cake made with regional cheese. After our brief break at the hut, we set out for Rifugio Locatelli and the hike got quite a bit more challenging, winding down and then back up the Pian da Rin basin. The Rifugio Locatelli was completely destroyed by shelling in World War I, and you can still see rock windows blown out of the surrounding cliff side that soldiers used when battling over the Sasso di Sesto. Once we got to Rifugio Locatelli, the hike got much easier, and it only took another hour to get to Rifugio Lavaredo and then back to Rifugio Auronzo.

We reached the base of the Tre Cime themselves at the Forcella Lavaredo, a point that Pope John Paul II reached and declared, “Non abbiate paura” (“Do not be afraid”). Those words really resonated with me, and keep running through my head. They are so fitting for such a magnificent view.

We made it back to Pragser Wildsee at 3:30 p.m., at which point we unsuccessfully tried to put Witten down for a nap and spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing. In our rush to finish the hike in the morning, we skipped lunch, but Witten was hungry so Kati, Witten, and I grabbed a quick bite to eat at a small bar/cafe that had really crummy food. Afterward, we had a few drinks at the hotel bar and explored the area a little bit more. We also got Witten an adorable traditional Austrian dress that she looks amazing in.

Because Witten refused to take a nap, we decided to put her down to bed early and stagger our dinners. Boy did Witten need the sleep, she went down almost immediately! My parents took the early dinner shift, starting at 7:00, and Kati and I switched with them around 8:15. Again, dinner was good, but left something to be desired. Kati started with a mushroom and vegetable crepe, followed by a pretty good ossobuco, while I had a basic tomato soup and then a dish of mixed seafood. We were supposed to have a mint sorbet for dessert, but they must have run out because they started bringing everyone a lemon sorbet, which was very tasty. By the time we made it back to the room, Kati and I were exhausted and passed out to prepare for another exciting day in the morning.

Facciamo Un'Escursione Gira a Lago di Braies

September 20, 2018

Lago di Braies

We left Valpolicella around 9:30 a.m. for the last leg of our Italian adventure - into Trentino Alto-Adige. I was really excited because this was the part of the trip that I was looking forward to the most. Specifically, I was excited about visiting the marvelous Lago di Braies, which Anton Schwingshackl aptly described in the following quote: “Lake Braies is so beautiful, changing and yet always beautiful; its charms are so varied that no advertisement could ever describe it as it really is. No photographer will ever come close to capturing its perfection.”

Trentino Alto-Adige is one of five constitutionally created autonomous regions in Italy, with the other four being Sardinia, Sicily, Aosta Valley, and Friuli-Venezia Giulia. It’s made up of two provinces - Trento and Bolzano (i.e., South Tyrol). Between the 800s and 1919, it was controlled by the Austro-Hungarian Empire and its predecessors, so the majority of the population in the province speaks German instead of Italian. It only came into Italian hands as a result of World War I. The Austrian and Italian armies were constantly engaged in combat in the area, and the Austrian defeat allowed the Italians to seize control. Italy’s annexation of Trentino Alto-Adige was then formalized by the Treaty of Saint-Germain.

Kati, Witten, and Me Around Lago di Braies

Lago di Braies a/k/a Pragser Wildsee, is in the Prags Valley of the Dolomites. It spans approximately 77 acres and reaches a depth of 118 feet. The lake is a pristine blue-green that is characteristic of the alps, and crystal clear. The locals explain the name “Pragser Wildsee” through an interesting legend. As the story goes, long ago, the mountains in the area were filled with gold and inhabited by wild men. One day, a group of heardsmen from to the valley to graze their flock and the wild men introduced them to gold by presenting them with rings and chains. The heardsmen became greedy and started stealing gold from the wild men, so the wild men broke open a spring that flowed from the depths of the mountain to form a pool between the mountains that rose so high up the cliff sides that it barred the heardsmen’s access to the high pastures and prevented them from stealing any more gold. The lake that the wild men had created was called the Wild Lake, or “Wildsee,” and the heardsmen’s valley was called “Pragser Tal.” Thus, the lake was known from that day forward as “Pragser Wildsee.”

There are not any motorized boats allowed on the lake. Rather, those seeking to explore the lake can rent wooden rowboats from a boat house that was built on stilts above the lake over a hundred years ago. That’s the same time that the Hotel Pragser Wildsee - a magnificent stone building gracing the shore of the lake - was completed (1898). The hotel is so splendid that, when the crown prince Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Este visited it in 1910, he was so taken that it decided to spend several weeks as a guest there.

Hotel Pragser Wildsee is also famous for playing a unique role during World War II. In late April 1945, during the closing weeks of the war in Europe, the Nazi authorities gave orders to move 141 high-profile prisoners from Dachau Concentration Camp to Innsbruck, Austria, and then down to a hotel near Bozen, Italy. Dozens of troops from the SS and SD guarded the transport, which was composed of a variety of old trucks and buses carrying the camp’s most important and prominent family members. The officers in charge of the transport had orders to kill the prisoners if there was any fear of capture, or if liberation by the advancing Allies became imminent. The German troops in South Tyrol, however, took the inmates into protective custody and the entire group was put up in the Pragser Wildsee until they were eventually liberated by U.S. troops in May 1945.

Hiking Around Lago di Braies

We arrived at Lago di Braies around 1:30 p.m. and were promptly greeted by a large, black Newfie named Happy. The man at the desk had a great sense of humor. He was also shocked that we were American and said that this past year they have seen more Americans coming to the lake than he had seen in the past decade. It appears that Instagram has drawn tons of new visitors to a beautiful locale that was previously rather unknown outside of the immediate surrounding countries. It’s a shame, but it’s also kind of how I found out about Braies - from photographs posted by a few of my favorite photographers.

After checking in, we grabbed a few beers and a late lunch before going for a nice hike around the lake. The hike was approximately 2.2 miles and included around 210-feet in elevation change, which isn’t a ton. It was not, however, the really easy walk that we had anticipated and my dad and Kati were not thrilled with the unexpected difficulty of some sections. Regardless, it was truly a beautiful walk and a great way to spend the afternoon.

Our stay at Pragser Wildsee includes half-board, meaning that breakfast and dinner are included. We were given an assigned table for dinner and required to be seated between 7:00 and 8:30 (though dinner lasted substantially longer than that). Our first dinner was a four-course meal consisting of a nice salad bar, our choice of three soup/pasta dishes (bean soup, spätzle, or spaghetti carbonara), our choice of three meat dishes (deer goulash, roast beef in a brown sauce, or some sort of fish dish), and a traditional cake from the area (i.e., a funnel cake) for dessert, though Witten opted for vanilla gelato with a chocolate straw. The food was good, but left something to be desired when compared to many of our other meals. I did, however, love the formal and relaxed feeling of a set, extended dinner and, surprisingly, Witten was outstanding and made it through the entire dinner without needing to be put to bed (though she also did a lot of running around).

Giriamo a Valpolicella

September 19, 2018

Mom, Kati, and Witten at Madonna della Corona

Valpolicella makes five different wines from four different grapes. The grapes varieties are: Corvina, Veronese, Rondinella, and Molinara. The five types of wine are: Valpolicella Classico, Valpolicella Superiore, Valpolicella Ripasso, Amarone, and Recioto. Each of these types of wines is tightly controlled and regulated. Valpolicella Classico is made from grapes grown in the original Valpolicella production zone. Valpolicella Superiore must be aged for at least one year and must have an alcohol content of at least 12%. Amarone is made from partially dried grapes, and must be composed of certain ranges of percentages of Corvina, Rodinella, and other approved red grape varieties. The word “Amarone” means “the great bitter” in Italian, and was initially used to distinguish it from Recioto, which is its sweeter cousin. Ripasso is Valpolicella Superiore that is passed over the partially dried skins left over from fermenting Amarone and Recioto.

The first item on our itinerary for the day was to hike up to Il Sanctuario di Madonna della Corona, which was built into the mountainside and can be reached by climbing approximately 1,500 stairs from Brentino Belluno. Everyone but me nixed the plan to hike up those stairs while we were at breakfast, but agreed to dropping me off at the bottom of the stairs and then driving up closer to the top, so we could meet up at the church. Fate, however, stepped in because I couldn’t find the bottom of the stairs to save my life. Thus, we decided to all drive up the mountain to Spiazzi and make the 20 minute walk down to the church together. The roads were treacherous, but there were dozens and dozens of bikers going up the mountain with us! It was a stunning drive and we arrived in Spiazzi around 11:00 a.m. The stairs up are used as a pilgrimage and are adorned with bronze renditions of the stations of the cross. We were privileged enough to see stations 8-15. As I told Kati, the stations of the cross don’t often do anything for me, but seeing them on this cliff side, in bronze scenes was incredibly moving. Interestingly, there was some lady on the walk down to the church that raised alpacas and was selling scarves and other garments made from their fur.

The Holy Steps

Madonna della Corona did not disappoint! It’s absolutely on my list of top ten churches I’ve been to in amazing locations - right up there with the Ostrog Monastery in Montenegro and the Rila Monastery in Bulgaria. It was truly stunning. There was a small church built right into the rocks, lined with confessional booths that overlooked the vase expanse below. To the side of that church was a stairway of 28 short, marble stairs that were designed for the devout to climb on their knees while contemplating the suffering of Christ and flagellating themselves (seriously). At the top of those stairs was another great little chapel with some stunning stained glass windows. And that wasn’t even the main church! There aren’t words sufficient to describe this place and its setting. If it was intended to be a location to instill faith in the faithless, it certainly accomplished its goal!

After spending a little over an hour at the sanctuary, we loaded back up into the car and started our descent to Fumane for lunch. The location that I had picked out - Enoteca della Valpolicella - is renowned for its food, and for having a wine list of over 700 different wines! It was quite a lunch. My mom and Kati started with plates of ricotta-stuffed zucchini flowers, while my dad had a sampler plate of salami, and I opened the meal with an amazing beef tartare, all of which we paired with a nice Valpolicella Superiore. Kati and I both got tortellini with duck, squab, and guinea fowl. My dad had the same, but with porcini mushrooms instead of birds, and my mom got some really lovely ravioli stuffed with ricotta cheese and white mountain spinach. Those dishes were paired with a really outstanding Ripasso from a local biodynamic winery in Fumane. After trying that wine, that winery became our next stop.

Azienda Valentina Cubi was only a mile from the Enoteca. It is a very small family owned estate that is organic certified. We had actually eaten lunch right next to one of the ladies who worked at the winery, which was pretty neat. She was entertaining their danish distributors. Despite not having a reservation, we got a tour of the winery and tasted five of their wines, plus a bonus because we had already tried their Ripasso at lunch. The Classico was good and the Superiore was excellent. We also got to try two of their Amarone - one from 2007, right before they became organic certified, and the second from the first year after they became certified. I liked the older one, but Kati preferred the crunchy organic one. Their Recioto, which I had never had before, was also phenomenal. The last wine that we tried was a weird one, a mix of Sangiovese and the typical Valpolicella grapes. None of us particularly cared for it. The others, though, provided a wonderful slate of wines to represent the region. We also got to hang out with the vintner and owner of the winery, which was really cool. I asked her for some recommendations that we could go to next, and got a varied list that spanned the entirety of Valpolicella. We picked out a close one that she highly recommended as a small, but outstanding producer.

Tenute Ugolini Estate

Finding Monteleone was challenging, and ultimately unfruitful. The gate was closed, but my mom and Kati walked up and eventually got to speak with the owner, who said that they were open, that they did do tastings, but that she had somewhere else that she needed to be that afternoon, so she couldn’t accommodate us. Alas, we decided to go to another winery that the Enoteca had recommended and that was on the drive back to our hotel - Tenute Ugolini. I don’t know if I’ve ever been to a more gorgeous estate in my life. It’s another small, family-owned winery. They have five vineyards spread across Valpolicella, each of which is devoted to making one of the region’s famous wines. The lady working at the winery was initially terse and cold, but warmed up quickly and gave us a really wonderful tour of the family’s home (which is also the base for their operations). We had a table right on the veranda overlooking the vineyards and the rows of cypress trees lining the gravel drive up, and got to taste all of their wines, except for the Recioto, which they was unfortunately out of stock.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon relaxing around Ca’ dei Maghi and sipping wine. Witten hadn’t taken a nap, and refused to take one when we got back, so Kati and I decided to put her down early. Luckily, the outside patio for the restaurant was within range for our baby monitor, so we just set it up on the dinner table and had a pleasant, baby-free meal, coupled with a bottle of Ca’ dei Maghi’s Amarone.