Where On Earth Is Pian Dei Pradi??

  Trento, Italy
Tuesday, July 17, 2007

As it turns out, Pian Dei Pradi is a pretty village in Northern Italy, in the foothills of the Dolomite Mountains near the city of Trento.  We know that now, because we drove most of the surrounding countryside for approximately several hundred kilometres in search of the place, which doesn't appear on any road signs or on any of our maps....but here we are, eventually!

Roadside Castles

We left Switzerland this morning and passed through the town of Mustair on our way, famous for having the oldest frescoes (paintings on the inside of churches, usually depicting religious scenes) in all of Europe, dating from the 1100s.  We stopped at the cathedral to see, and were amazed to see that the church is still in regular use for mass and services, and was staffed by a tiny little old lady in a black nun's habit.  The frescoes were very cool, still brightly coloured and slightly cartoonish in style.  We also stopped by a little chapel on the church grounds that dates from the mid-700s AD and was closed for renovations - I imagine that 1300 years worth of spring cleaning could take a while!

Always Wear your Helmet

We left Switzerland to the sound of church bells chiming, and headed over the border to Italy.  We immediately noticed the difference - the drivers were terrible, the motorcyclists were all wearing shorts and t-shirts instead of leathers, and there were castles on every second hill we passed.  We drove through an awesome medieval walled town with huge exterior frescoes on the church spire,  and on to Trento, where we got somewhat turned around and ended up driving the wrong way down tiny narrow little streets, and through the piazza, where several people drinking coffee in outside cafes looked at us oddly as we did a U-turn around the huge fountain of Neptune.  Oops, wrong way then....

Pleasant Piazza

To cut a long story short, after a LOT of driving around aimlessly, incomprehensible directions from helpful but non-English speaking locals, and a certain amount of luck, we found our way to the tiny town of Pian Dei Pradi and finally managed to check in to our hotel.  We had dinner downstairs at the restaurant, which was obviously a family affair, with Mum doing the cooking, son running the hotel, and daughter-in-law waitressing.  The food (pasta, of course) was amazing, and we had to admit that although they may be crazy drivers, Italians definitely know how to cook.

A Thing for Churches

The next day, we had planned to drive down to Padova or even train to Venice, but discovered that, being a Monday, most shops, museums, and places of interest are closed.  Plans thwarted, we headed into Trento instead, and had a lovely morning wandering the streets, marvelling at the huge, ostentatious cathedral (for those theological buffs out there, the cathedral in the main piazza is the very cathedral where the Council of Trent regulated the Counter-Reformation, I'll have you know...), and eating gelato in fabulous flavours like mango and hazelnut.  Since it was a hot, sticky day, with temperatures in the high 30s, we decided to head to the lakeside town of Riva Del Garda, a prime windsurfing spot and beach hangout for half of the population of Italy.  The people-watching alone made it worth the trip - leathery skinned women in tiny sequin bikinis with breasts down to their navels sunbathed beside long haired, romance novel cover-model wannabes and g-string wearing teenagers, while Italian men in ultra-tiny Euro Speedos posed and lounged and generally checked out all the bikini wearing women. 

... It's an Italian Thing

It was highly entertaining, and the water was lovely and cool on a hot day.  We spent the early evening wandering through the waterfront piazza, then headed back to Trento where we had a picnic on the grass with cheese, fresh bread, and basil pesto while the sunset turned the castle towers behind us a golden colour.  So far, Italy definitely gets the thumbs up from us.

Double the Fun

All our best from Italy,

Dan and Gabrielle