The Soaring Italian Alps at St. Christina and Ortisei, Our Future Winter Home

Have you ever seen the movie “Planes, Trains and Automobiles?” Well Team Glavin was part of the sequel “2Planes, a bus, a train and another bus!” It doesn’t quite have the same Hollywood ring to it, now does it? It was a long day to the Italian Alps and our final destination St. Christina. By the time we arrived at the hotel we were on the road some 15 hours. We were tired, hungry and had the feint odor of Ode de American. We trekked from Berlin’s Teagel airport to Cologne Germany’s airport and then to Innsbruck airport. We grabbed a bus to the train station in Innsbruck, kicked out a squatter in our train compartment, had a cabin mate that slept the whole trip. The kids enjoyed his nervous twitching while asleep, and then we disembarked in Bolzano. We’re a 48km bus ride from Bolzano, uphill if you’re the topographical type. We had a bit of a setback in Bolzano. We don’t speak Italian and the women in the bus terminal ticket station doesn’t do numbers so well, you see Platform 7 is different than Platform 2, so we missed the first bus to St Christina. Hey what’s another 2 hours tacked onto this journey? The kids were great considering the 4:30am wake up at the Berlin Marriott. We were on a 3 country odyssey this fine day.
The ride out of Bolzano is uphill. It takes 1.5 hours because the slope requires a somewhat slow ascent and there are quite a number stops along the way. We have a bit of a challenge as the bus is full, the driver speaks zero English but assures us he will tell us when we get to St Christina. Each stop is filled with anxiety as we aren’t sure if this is the right stop or if we need to make a quick exit. Can you make a quick exit with 3 kids, a tired wife, 5 suitcases and 5 backpacks and husband doubling as a pack mule on this trip? Did I mention we got a few souvenirs in Berlin that needed some TLC along the great trek?
A few passengers on the bus sensed our angst and alerted us to the “STOP” and we jumped out replacing the anxiety of the bus issue with a new anxiety, finding the Hotel. “Is it uphill or downhill comes the question from the kids?” After 15 hours I’m pretty sure I said “Ask your mother.”, but probably not in such a nice tone. It was a few minutes of quizzical looks from strangers and a couple of shoulder shrugs later we discovered “downhill”. TGFSF Thanks God for Small Favors! Downhill and uphill here are very different than at home.
Our hotel looks out on the amazing vista of the Italian Alps of the Dolomite region of Val Gardena. We feed the team, we watch a concert from the patio of our hotel and the 15 hrs. journey melts away like the ice cube in my highly carbonated Sprite.
Now where do you find housing for 5 Americans in St. Christina/Ortisei? We’ll leave that anxiety for tomorrow.
Carpe Diem