Alto Adige

I was depressed for all of September and all blame falls squarely on the truant weather gods. 2 Degrees in September is cruel and unfair. So for those who were wondering whats up with lazy fingers, you know why. Courtesy Reunification day (do we need a holiday thanking the Americans and Russians for dividing us?), we enjoyed a 3 day weekend in the mountains in South Tyrol (Sud Tyrol). One of the strong appeals of living in Munich is its location, a couple of hours and u can be in very different locations. Italy being one of the popular and Sud Tyrol being the closest in it, popular logic would think we would have been there a couple of times. Alas this was the first time, we subscribe to converse logic. For a change the line drawer organized the roadtrip. As marks most of our Italian vacation, wine was a high point of our agenda. I have graduated to underrated and fantastic Alto Adige region, my grand plan was to explore the famous white wines of the region during the summer as I tend to partial to white in warm weather. No such luck, more beer than wine this summer. Main difference from my other favourite region (Tuscany) being that instead of rolling hills you have steep mountains. Its afterall the Alpine region. For starters, there is nothing Italian about this place, its very German. The food is very heavy, the accent is thick and everything is very orderly unlike my usual italian experience of a sing-song language, filling food and what seems like organized confusion. However top marks for the locations and crisp alpine air. A very comfortable bed and breakfast was our abode which also boasted a very good chef with whome we dined for the first evening. The heavy rains and bumper to bumper traffic did not leave much time to explore the first night. A late breakfast gave us the perfect excuse not to start the day with any hiking and instead explore vineyards ( I am still smirking about that one). First stop, Hofkellerei. Small vineyard but more famous for its family imports and I am not talking grapes here. Elena Walch married into the family that runs Hofkellerei and then went to build one of the best vineyards in the region now under her own name, Elena Walch. The line drawer got a thrill out of knowing that she was also a former architect. Her husband also runs his own Winery called Willem Walch. Several tasting and hundreds of euros later we decided to explore one of the Vineyards and so we headed to Castel Rindberg. After lots of grapes, steep slopes, green apples and multi-hued lizards we decided it was good time to break for lunch. We hit the lake, Lago Di Caldaro, later in the afternoon. Dinner was at the J. Hoffstätter estate restaurant, a simple meal of pasta and liquid gold. On the second day my excuses did not find much appeal, I finally had to trek up the mountain. Lunch was in Bolzano at a restaurant to which we seemed going back to often though I am not sure why. We were back in time in Munich to go to P's Favourite indian restaurant for her fix of dosas. My curry was disappointing.