Day 4: Cycling (or driving) to Bolzano
This morning started out great.
The weather was beautiful and the scenery gorgeous. Unfortunately, that didn't last. About 3 miles into the ride, we had a minor crash, but Jeri wrenched her right shoulder and it looks like she may have a rottor cuff injury. Crash detection on the phone called Brendan and Sawyer, as well as emergency services. 2 ambulances showed up and the EMT (or Italian equivalent) wasn't happy about Jeri's refusal to get transported to the ER. We elected, though, to ride out the remainder of the day in the van. Very disappointing.
We thought we'd be able to visit this church, but it was closed on Tuesdays.
We did get to see thousands and thousands of apple trees. This region supplies apples to most of Europe. The trees are grown only a couple of feet apart and aggressively pruned so they never get too tall oe bushy.
We had the opportunity to photograph our friends from the chase van.
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| Rich |
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| Suzanne |
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| Molly and Dave |
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| Ron and Geri |
Our destination was the Firmian Messer Museum. It is one of six mountain museums founded by Reinhold Messner to "explore the relationship between humans and mountains through art, religion, geology, tourism, and alpinism". He salvaged old decaying castles for these museums.
Reinhold Messner is a South Tyrolean mountaineer, explorer, author, and museum founder, and honestly one of the biggest names in the history of climbing.
Messner was born in 1944 in Val di Funes / Villnöss, a valley in South Tyrol, and grew up in the Dolomites. Local sources say he climbed his first 3,000-meter mountain as a child with his father, which is very on-brand for South Tyrol: “kindergarten, cowbells, casual alpine exposure.”
His fame comes from a string of huge mountaineering breakthroughs. In 1978, he and Austrian climber Peter Habeler became the first people to summit Mount Everest without bottled oxygen. Then in 1980, Messner made the first solo ascent of Everest, again without supplemental oxygen. He was also the first person to climb all 14 of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks, completing that list by 1986.
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| Firmian Castle |
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| View from the tower |
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| Rich and Suzanne with Messer's statue |
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| Ron and Geri |
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| Patti and Rick |
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| Leaving Firmian Museum |
The museum was only a couple of miles as the crow flies from our hotel in Bolzano, but it took about 30 or 40 minutes to get there. We arrived back at the Hotel Greif which will be our base of operations for the next two days.
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| Waltherplaz |
The hotel overlooks the main square, Waltherplaz, named for the medeival poet and troubador, Walther von der Vogelweide. It contains the Bolzano Cathedral and a statue of Walther as well as a multitude of restaurants (not medeival).
We had a walking tour that evening of the city.
Following the tour, we had a cooking class followed by dinner. The food was excellent, but another very late dining experience. This is really throwing off my circadian rythm.
Tomorrow we hike, so Jeri can rest her shoulder another day.
We did get to see thousands and thousands of apple trees. This region supplies apples to most of Europe. The trees are grown only a couple of feet apart and aggressively pruned so they never get too tall oe bushy.
We had the opportunity to photograph our friends from the chase van.
Our destination was the Firmian Messer Museum. It is one of six mountain museums founded by Reinhold Messner to "explore the relationship between humans and mountains through art, religion, geology, tourism, and alpinism". He salvaged old decaying castles for these museums.
