Sightseeing Around Bolzano

(For those checking this regularly, I have added 4 long posts today, so don't forget to keep reading after this one!)

After some failed attempts to see the sights around this town (the first cable car we visited was closed, of course and the shuttle bus to the castle we wanted to visit was apparently invisible), we finally managed to find some of the nicer parts of Bolzano.

Our first trip was to Schloss Runkelstein (or Castel Roncolo - this is such a bilingual city that everything has an Italian and a German name - and all of the locals speak both languages - pretty amazing!) This 14th Century castle is most famous for its frescoes which decorate all of the walls of the castle. It also gives some pretty amazing views of the nearby scenery.

We then headed up the San Genesio cable car (we found one that was working! Luckily we arrived just before it took its 90 minute lunch break. Yes, even the cable cars need a siesta...) , tried some fantastic local wine (only 1 Euro a glass!) and saw a beautiful little church and cemetery. No photos, though as my camera ran out of batteries, sorry.

The next day (the last day of Rita's visit) we headed to the nearby town of Merano (immortalised by a terrible song in the musical Chess). Merano is amazingly different from Bolzano. It is much more Austrian in many ways and feels much calmer. I really liked this city and will certainly be visiting it more often in my time here.

Right in the middle of town is a really small castle which was amazing on the inside.

The main cathedral in Merano was also very beautiful, as was the side chapel nearby that contained the bodies of 2 dead saints!

Outside the cathedral was an amazing food stall selling an incredible range of yummy pastas, pasta sauces and even truffle oil. I had to buy a few things that will go on the menu for Christmas lunch!

After a terribly traditional lunch of Specknoedelsuppe (Bacon dumpling soup) and beer, we took a walk along the river to find the most spectacular scenery in the area!

It was so great to discover this beautiful little town on Rita's last day here. Having her here with me has really helped in what has been a fairly stressful time and I am looking forward to catching up with her one more time in LA on my way back to Melbourne in January. Only 10 more days left in Bolzano... (and I still have to write about my trip to Milan last Friday!)

A Trip To Venice

My first night in Bolzano was a Thursday, and then I was lucky enough to have Friday as my night off, so Rita and I decided to travel to Venice for the night. Rita spent a lot of time online trying to book a hotel for when we arrived without any success, so we just decided to go and take our chances - in the worst case scenario, we would catch the latest train back to Bolzano so we had as much time in Venice as possible.

In true Italian style, everything that could go wrong with this trip did. We arrived at Bolzano train station at 9am having checked the times of the trains but were told by the friendly (but in retrospect, not so competent) ticket seller that the 9.30am train would be cheaper. We foolishly took her advice and bought tickets for the 9.30am train with a change in Verona. What she didn't tell us was that the train from Verona to Venice left before the train we were on arrived, and so it was impossible to make that connection. The next train to Venice left an hour and a half later. Not quite enough time to do much, but we did have a bit of a walk around Verona and saw some of the sights. It is quite a pretty city and I will go back for a visit a bit later in the month.

Finally we arrived in Venice at about 2.30pm. Our first stop was the tourist office who told us that the only accommodation available was about 25km out of town and cost about 150 Euros for the night. This is the first time in all of my travels that I have not been able to book something cheap and easy on arriving in a city. (Did I mention how much I love Italy?!?). So we bought our tickets on the last train back to Bolzano (at 11pm, so still plenty of time to look around), paid the outrageous fee to check our backpacks at the station (no convenient luggage lockers, of course) and headed into Venice.

Venice really is a beautiful city. This was my second time here and it really is very scenic. Our reduced time in the city meant that our list of things we wanted to visit while we were there was no longer possible, so we brought it down to the main touristy things. A boat ride on the grand canal (a gondola was too expensive, so we travelled on the cheap ferries instead, which are crowded, but still nice), the Doge's Palace, St Marks and the Rialto Bridge.

Arriving at St Marks square (pictured above), we saw a very long line to get into St Mark's Cathedral, so we decided the Doge's Palace would be the first stop. The signs said it was open until 7pm, so we had plenty of time. Until some people that were in the line in front of us told us that the ticket office had closed at 4pm. Where's the logic in that?!? So we missed out on the Doge's Palace (surprising? NO! annoying? YES!)

We then joined the line to get into St Mark's (pictured above). Thankfully, we actually got in and had a good look around, including the treasury which contained lots of religious relics (a thigh bone of a saint, more of the nails that crucified Jesus and pieces of wood from the cross... that was a very big cross). It is a stunning building.

After winding our way through the narrow streets and a little bit of shamelessly touristy shopping (everyone needs a Venetian mask...) we arrived at the Rialto Bridge right on sunset and got a beautiful view over the grand canal.

We had dinner in a pretty average touristy restaurant on the Grand Canal (suckers....) and found this amazing mask and puppet shop.

That evening we continued wandering the streets of Venice, taking lots of great night photos of the city.

We also made a stop at Harry's Bar where Hemingway used to hang out, and where they invented the Bellini. It was far too bright and expensive in there, so we had a drink at the much nicer bar opposite instead, but still took photos outside Harry's.

Finally, we arrived back in Bolzano at 2.30am. It wasn't the most successful side trip ever, but it was certainly a memorable one!

Bolzano, Italy

On the 1st November, I moved to my new venue for the month of November, in the town of Bolzano in the north of Italy (not far from the Austrian border and close to to the Dolomite Mountains).

I am playing and living at the Parkhotel Laurin, which is considered one of the nicest hotels in town.

This move and gig, however, seemed fraught with problems from the start. As Rita was still travelling with me, I had phoned the hotel in advance to organise a trundle bed for her to stay in the hotel with me (which my contract said was allowed with the permission of the hotel management). Unfortunately my room is quite small and the staff said it would be impossible to fit a trundle bed in here, so we had to find a different hotel for Rita. (In my opinion, it would be quite easy to fit a trundle bed in here, but the staff basically refused, which was really quite irritating)

The second big frustration came when I met with the entertainment manager of the hotel who told me that I was required to play all jazz music (her example of music that wasn't really acceptable unless requested was Elton John... how hardcore! Lucky I didn't mention that I can play AC/DC, Metallica, Bohemian Rhapsody and Stairway to Heaven...). While I do have some jazz music in my repertoire, it really isn't my strong point (especially not as a piano player) and there really wasn't enough to make sure I wasn't playing the same songs every night. So I've had to change my repertoire quite a lot here and am really finding it very boring. It's just not my thing to be playing jazz 6 nights a week. She also told me that I had to make a list of every song I play each night... no other country in the world requires this!!! Only in Italy...

So far, I haven't been very impressed with this country. It has some beautiful things in it, but in many ways it just makes me realise all of the good things about Germany and Austria and the Germanic people. In general, everything here is much dirtier and I find people quite rude, uncooperative and aggressive. Everything is accompanied by lots of unnecessary beauracracy (I had to take my passport with me to buy a prepaid SIM card for my phone) and there are more police than I have seen anywhere else (though they don't seem to do much about many of the problems). Shops and offices close for a long lunch break, not all at the same time, meaning that there is a large chunk in the middle of the day when it is not possible to do anything at all. I am really looking forward to heading back to Dresden at the end of the month!

My Last Week In Laengenfeld

Once again, I have been a bit slack about updating my blog, but this time it was because a lot was happening. The last week of October was my last week at Aqua Dome (probably ever, which is a bit sad) and it was a very eventful one!

The week started with a big party at the hotel to launch the ski season and the World Cup Skiing championships at Soelden (the ski mountain in the area). The Frozen Fire Party had the theme of Green and White (the colours of the Tyrolean flag) and was also promoting the European Cup Football which is being held in Tyrol next year. The hotel foyer was decorated amazingly and I only had to play a few sets because the band played most of the time - so I had plenty of opportunity to enjoy the party with lots of good food and drinks!

Here are some pictures of the foyer decorations (and don't forget that clicking on them links to my Flickr account which has some extra photos on it)

After partying very late into the night, I then had an early start to head into Innsbruck to meet my friend Rita at the airport. It was so great to have her come visit me again and it gave me a good excuse to visit some of the sightseeing destinations in the valley that I had not yet seen.

Our first day of sightseeing involved heading down to the village of Umhausen to visit Oetzidorf - a small village set up to recreate how people lived in the Stone Age in the valley (The Oetztal, or Oetz valley was the place where the 4,000 year old mummy called Oetzi was found in the ice in 1991. He is the oldest mummy ever discovered.) Unfortunately, Oetzidorf had closed for the winter the day before, but we were able to walk around the fence and look at the huts.

We then headed up the path to see the Stuibenfalls which is the largest waterfall in the Oetztal. None of the signs warned what a steep climb it was, nor that the hut selling refreshments on the way up was closed for the winter. After a fairly exhausting walk uphill we reached the first viewing point of the falls.

I ventured up a little higher to the next viewing platform for a better view. It also gave me a fantastic view over the valley and to the nearby mountains. This scenery is so spectacular. It's very difficult to take a bad photograph.

On the way down, I was amused by this sign, and had to take a photo... Don't Stop!!!

The next day, we headed in the other direction further up the valley to the town of Soelden and then to the glacier which was used for the World Cup Skiing the previous weekend. There were lots of people up there skiing for the day and we looked a little out of place in fairly normal (but warm) clothes amongst all the skiing outfits. It was very cold up there, though (it had not been above 0 degrees much at all in the last couple of weeks)

We headed up the cable car (which they call a gondola...) to the highest point on the glacier. 3370m above sea level.

What they didn't tell us was there was about a 15 minute walk up to the highest point... and it was even steeper than the walk we had done yesterday... and totally covered in snow with no handrail or steps... not so accessible in normal shoes. If you look at the first photo here, the path is the white expanse on the left of the rocks.

I decided to give it a go, though, and clambered up, mostly on my hands and knees (I was very thankful for my thermals!) and got most of the way to the top. As you can probably tell from the photos, it was a very overcast foggy and snowy day, so there was no view to speak of, but I still feel like it was an achievement - even though I didn't get all the way up. It is amazing how thin the air is up there and how much effort it took to climb. I really don't know how people that trek in the Himalayas manage it... very impressive. This photo is at the top of the first part of the climb (Rita is the small person in the middle of the photo)

And these are some photos from the highest point that I made it to (which wasn't too far from the top...)

I especially like this photo of the glacial ice.

Once I finally gave up (mostly because I was worried of falling - everything around me was white and it was getting difficult to tell where the edge of the path was) it was mostly easier to slide down the path as though I was on a toboggan... just without the toboggan. It was fun! (Rita has some video footage which is hilarious - no photos on here, sorry)

And so, I said goodbye to Laengenfeld and the friends I have made there over the 3 times I was working at Aqua Dome. It is a very special place and I really do look forward to going back there for a visit some day.