Julia's adventures and thoughts!: Dolomites and Otzi the Ice Man! 07/07/07

My skin is hot right now, I feel like I am radiating. Anyways, this past weekend Nisha and I went to the Dolomites aka the Italian Alps. It was really nice and quaint. I like quaint, it's one of my things. I mean all of Italy has been cute so far, although I guess Rome will change that, but for the first time, I did not hear any other tourists speak english - for 2 whole days! There weren't that many tourists in general, and they mainly spoke German. So, on Saturday we arrived to Bolzano/Bozen. Everything in this region is in both German and Italian since the area used to be a part of Austria but then was taken over by Italy during one of those World Wars.

First, we dropped our stuff of at the youth hostel, which was the nicest hostel I've ever stayed in, it was really new and all ikea-like, and they had a good free breakfast that was all you could eat mmmm. Normally they give you a hunk of bread and coffee or sugary water. We walked around the small town and there was so much green-ness, I was so overwhelmed. If you think MIT is bad about green space, Venice is worse, there's hardly any :( ! There were so many bike and walking paths and streets where cars are not allowed to drive on, more things I like. On Saturdays there is a street market that sold cheap crap, like fake designer bags and clothes, and delicious fruit. We walked about, and went shopping, because I really needed more shorts for Greece, and I always wanted a pair of boardshorts but such things are hard to find in Venice. There were more outdoors and sports shops in Bolzano so I bought two pairs of shorts and nice sunglasses, which I also needed because I have been blinded by the sun while walking to and from work. It was like magic when I bought the sunglasses because it's really hard to find sunglasses that fit my round face and still look good, and on top of that don't rest on my cheeks and then move when I change my facial expression. So I tried on a bunch of sunglasses and then I asked the guy at the store, and he put a pair on my face and they fit perfectly.

BUT EVEN MORE EXCITING was seeing Otzi, the iceman! The museum was set up into 4 floors, going through the progression of man and technology starting with the stone age, then a whole floor about otzi, then the bronze age, then the roman era. You couldn't take any pictures though :( But Otzi was so cool! It was weird though, you waited in line, and look through this like 3x3 window into a room with ice walls where they keep him now. But it was still cool! I went back to look at him again later and there was nobody in line and just looked at him for a long time. We then took a cable car to Oberbozen and walked on some short trails to see earth pyramids, which kind of looked by bryce canyon but not as cool, and then to a lake. We then took the cable car back down and ate a delicious meal of the region's food, like beer dumplings, schnitzel, and beer brewed there.

On Sunday, we embarked on a grand adventure to get a good view of the dolomites. It was all about timing. We took an hour bus from Bolzano to Castelrotto, from there was took a 30 minute bus to Compastch. The road were really windy and there was like no air circulation in the bus and I felt really motion sick. But once I got outside and felt the fresh mountain air I was a lot better. We then took a chair lift up part of the mountain and hiked on trails through wideopen green mountain sides for a few hours until we got our spectacular view. Along the way there were refugios that had places to stay and restaurants. We stopped at one and ate salad, which was strange because it was the best salad I've had since getting here, like halfway up a mountain! The people in this area also wear mountain village style clothing that say let's go yodeling right now dresses and shorts held up by suspenders and funky hats. By the time we made it up the mountain it was about 2:30, and we had to get back down the mountain, get back to compatsch, take the bus to castelrotto, take the bus back to bolzano, and catch our train at 7:31. The next train back wasn't until 3:36am. We would need to back to compastch by at 5:15 at the latest, to catch the infrequent bus back to bolzano from castelrotto.

We started hiking in the direction we thought was right, but we weren't sure because the map actually wasn't that good. We asked a man where we were, and he told us we were somewhere completely different than where we thought and on the other side of the mountain. I don't think he was right, but we freaked out, and we couldn't tell where we were either. So we headed back the way we came, but it would have taken too long to head completely back the way we came. We decided to try to catch a different chair lift down, but we still weren't sure where we were. So I was like let's run down this hill onto that trail over there and walk in that direction, even though on the map it didn't look like exactly the right one we wanted, but the map seemed wrong anyways. So that's what we did, which could have screwed us over if it was the wrong trail, but we ran into a man in suspenders walking his dog and asked him where we were and we were in the right spot, yay! We made it to the chairlift dead tired and scared the chairlift operator with our incoherent jumble. We were trying to ask him how to take the chairlift down, but we must have come across as zombies. His response? Well, do you have money? As we made our way back down the mountain, the bubble of our chairlift suddenly closed and delirious Nisha and I both screamed. Finally, we made our way back, and ate a hot dog and strudel while waiting for the different connections and made our way home. It was ridiculous but awesome.