Today we took a side trip to Bolzano, Italy. It is located south of Innsbruck, Austria and has a combination of Italian and German speaking citizens. It is about a two hour drive to get there. Below are some pictures of the scenery, taken out the window of the bus, on the way to Bolzano.

The bus let us off outside the city and we had to take a tunnel to get to the main streets. It was very awkward at first when the bus driver said everyone out. He said he wasn’t allowed to take the bus into the city. We didn’t know where the hell we were at first, but soon found the way.

This is known as the duomo, which dates back to the 15th century. It has a multi-colored roof made of mosaic tiles.

This is the Piazza Walther. The statue is of Walther von der Vogelweide, a 13th century minnesinger – born,according to legend, in the Bolzano area.

These are some photos of the exterior of the duomo. I don’t know why it is called that. It is really a Gothic church. There is also a picture of me freezing my ass off!!!

The folowing are all pictures of the interior of the church. It was absolutely beautiful. It had lots of gold everywhere. The pictures do not really do it justice.

While there I lit one candle for a good friend back home and another for my father, who has been in and out of the hospital numerous times in the past month. Maybe this will help. Let’s hope so.

This is an ornamental wear dating back to the 12th century. Very impressive!!!

Randy and I at the door to the confessional. Only visiting though. The priest would do flips if I ever went in there!!!!!

The altar of this church was really beautiful!!!

This a picture of a school in Bolzano. I believe it was a University. We went in it by mistake looking for the Ice Man and a very nice student directed us to the museum. We are always so great with directions. HA!! HA!! We couldn’t find our way out of a wet paper bag.

More scenes of the wonderful streets of Bolzano. They were very narrow and very old.

The outdoor market place in Bolzano. The had just about anything your could think of. We bought a couple of apple strudels, which we had for breakfast the next day. They were delicious!!!!!

LUNCH TIME !!! Just happened to run into this cart selling frankfurters, only they called them something else. The were long and you dipped them in either mustard or catsup. They were so delicious we each had two. The Germans sure know how to make good frankfurters. HOT DOG!!!!!

More scenes of Bolzano. I really loved this place. It’s streets dated way back centuries ago. There were places where they had 15th century dates on the buildings. I wished I had taken a picture of that. All the streets were cobblestone and used for pedestrian traffic only.

We also toured the Historical Museum where we saw Osti, the Ice Man. He was found on a mountain by hikers. They determined his age to be 5300 years old. He is the oldest known man in the world. Amazingly he was mummified because of the extremely cold climate. He even had skin, hair and fingernails. You could view his entire body from a small window. They keep him in a temperature controlled set of three rooms. Randy purchased a book telling all about him. Unfortunately I couldn’t take any pictures.

We stopped in Piazza Walther and I had an Irish coffee. I found that was the one coffee drink the Italians knew how to make. However not all of them were made as potent as they should have been. Come on now Italians!!! Your are talking to an Irishman who knows his Irish Coffee!!!!!!!!!

We met our bus at 3:00 for the return trip to Cortina. I wish we had been able to spend more time in Bolzano as it was such a neat place.

On the way home all you could see aroung Bolzano were vineyards. There were everywhere, even on the steep hillsides.

We got back to Cortina about 5:00, walked around the Corsa Italia for a bit and found a new restaurant that we thought we would try that evening. It was called the 5 Torrie. Randy found it and we later gave it a try. They actually had waitresses that could speak English.

We also met another American from Santa Crus. who supposedly had been staying with friends. Then he said he was staying at the same hotel as us. I never remember seeing him at the hotel. Randy called this guy Maurisse and we both thought he was gay. We had great laughs from then on about this guy.

The dinner was great and from then on we were hooked. We went back to this restaurant every night. I especially liked this waitress. She was really a babe!!! She sounded German but she said she was Italian. Nevertheless she was our official waitress until we left Cortina. We even ran into her while walking on the Corsa Italia.

To see pics in full view click on slideshow after clicking here