Pizza and Schnitzel

We made the 2 hour drive from Innsbruck to Bolzano in Northern Italy yesterday no problem, the views of the Alps were amazing. We set up camp and then departed on a drive I had read about through the Dolomite Mountain range. Perhaps a little cocky with our car but my thinking was if we didn't do these drives we may as well have taken trains.

I expected it to be a drive like going through the Rockies, steep in places but mostly fine and breathtaking. I also expected the 200km round trip to be around 4 hours. Well this drive was more than I bargained for. It quickly became like driving up a ski hill over and over again, which it was. We did countless hairpin turns up mountain sides, countless as in multiple hundred not dozens. We drove through so many beautiful ski villages, each one would make for an amazing week in the Alps. The views were second to none an something we will never forget, but the road was too much for the car.

After 4 hours we reached halfway and I was stressing a bit, really hoping we wouldn't have to go back that way. We did find a slightly easier return, but still over 2 hours and with plenty of steep climbs and descents. When dark hit in the middle of the mountains we really knew a breakdown would be a real shitter. Long story short we made it back to our site after 6 hours of emotional highs and lows. After sleeping on it I of course feel like it was worth it, but the brakes now squeal and the tranny made some new noises, warning light flashed a bit too. Poor little car.

As more well read people than myself will already know, this area of Italy was part of Austria for 700 years up until the end of WW1. All the signs are in German and Italian, all the villages we drove through were very German looking, and everyone at our camp ground speaks German. The menu last night had only pizza and schnitzel on it. It's very strange to think about an entire region with so many people changing hands less than 100 years ago. The signs of how recent it is are very obvious.

Personally I'm glad it's Italy because if it were still Austria they'd probably charge me another €128 for 40km of autobahn driving through a country that was just in my way. Bastards.

-Justin