La Montanara Santa Caterina Valfurva

Thedrive from Davos down to the Stelvio Pass was pretty good, and we stopped a few times to take it all in, and to let the engine cool down a bit, as it was working fairly hard.


We took a small road from Santa Maria, and that was really good, with some tight U bends, and magnificent views. This road took us across the Swiss/Italian border.


And then we joined the ...

... the peak a very fit looking guy came up from a completely different direction and I asked him which way he came, and he said by the via ferrata (iron road). These are routes up the mountains, sections of which are very exposed, and ladders, cables, and other hardware is installed, to which you clip yourself. They were originally built in the Dolomites during WW1 by the Italian army when they were fighting the Austro-Hungarian empire, and they are now found throughout the ...

... the road, then crossing the Inn River at Chaflur. At this point, we made the mistake to believe that a bike trail in Austria and Germany means the same in Switzerland.... We were wrong; the trail took us high up before bringing us back down along the river, travelling through mud and over tree stumps crossing the trail. Even tough we eventually made it to Scuol unharmed, we had lost a lot of energy for actually a short ...

... along to any song or tune in common. Needless to say I was rendered somewhat incapacitated the following day. Not that I can complain though, as this gave me a day to rest and recover and to take on the slopes with renewed energy the days after. 1 March 2008 - Saturday We had absolutely no new snow throughout our week in San Cassiano, but this also meant that we were lucky enough with sunny days. On Saturday we went out for our last session of snowboarding ...

Poschiavo, our destination for the day trip over the Albula Pass was a very nice, tidy town with a good choice of eating places and proximity to some wonderful scenery. A good alternative to the main Swiss resorts. It's also very handy to the Italian lakes Como, Maggiore and Lugano and the train trips of the Simplon entry to Switzerland.
On the day that we arrived ...

Today I was very excited and happy to be going home. The worst part of the day was saying goodbye to dad at the airport. I managed to overtake people as I walked to the plane and scored a window seat. Soon I was flying over mountains, from up here I could see the war memorial on Monte Grappa. I could clearly see isolated towns in the valleys below. It was really pretty, but not ...

... a GLORIOUS 22 hour flight home to Oz. I've packed up half my luggage and am storing it in Merano but to be honest I'm not sure what I'm going to do re coming back here. The Waldorf school has found another teacher during my perth visit but now also for April which makes it less enticing to come back with less work opportunities.  My return flight is for march 2 but whether other things come up or I wait till mid ...

Went away for the long weekend to Fran's family cabin in the mountains near Madonna di Campiligia (North west of Trento and 1.5hr south west of Merano). Was so lovely to get away from Merano for a bit. Not having a car is so restrictive and can make things a bit lonely sometimes. We spent the weekend basically eating ...

I miss the aussies! THe hostel here is really clean, and it's cheap, but there are no other english speakers. I hope that they (the santorini six) read this and appreciate how great it was to backpack together. Anyway, I've had to kill a couple days in Trent before i can go visit Francesco (italian friend), and it's bor-ing bor-ing ...

... stroll through alpine meadows and forest to the top of the gondola was followed by a refreshing glass of Forst, the local beer, then back down to the campsite. The following day, with the weather slightly improved but with clouds looming over the mountains, we cancelled our plans for another hike and instead caught the bus into the provincial capital of Bolzano. The province itself (Sud-Tirol or Trentino-Alto Aldige, depending on your choice of language) was ...