When I wake up the sky looks full of rain and by
breakfast it is raining steadily, by the time we're due to leave it's pouring
down. Since the reason we decided to come to Italy and not finish off our LEJOG
walk was to get some sunshine, it all seems pretty ironic. We are kitted out in
full waterproofs - even our day sacks have their little waterproof covers on.
We leave the Gasthof Krone & are driven to the
monastery of Maria Weissensteig. It's very impressive and the most visited
place in Trentino Alto Adige. We can believe this, as it's not yet 10:00 and
the car park is already filling up with cars & tour buses.
It feels good to leave all this hustle & bustle, by
way of a pretty meadow, to enter a misty & ethereal forest. The rain is less
heavy here and we divest ourselves of our rain jackets, not daring just yet to
take off our waterproof trousers. We pass lots of shrine-like boards, each with
a different religious carving on it. They are numbered and we are passing them
in descending order, starting with 12. Halfway along we meet an old couple, the
woman is praying out loud & we just nod a greeting. This is a pilgrim's
route and do not want to interrupt her devotions ( imagine if she had to start
from 1 again)!
The wood is very scenic, with pretty streams, the odd
cascade & trees entangled around rocks. Eventually we leave it and start
the walk into Deutschnofen, first by rural lanes and then more urban streets.
We spot a nice looking cafe and pop in for a quick cappuccino. When we leave, the German speaking waiter laughs and says he hopes we have a nice day. He
tells us the weather should be nice this afternoon. We thank him and say we are
ever optimistic. An Italian speaking customer looks outside and laughs.
As we leave though, the rain is already just a few spots
and as we climb up the very steep lane out of town & into another forest,
we stop to take off our waterproof trousers. There is a viewpoint here and we
guess it must be spectacular if there's less cloud. This wood has lots of
triangular boards, but instead of religious pictures, it has excerpts of local
fairy stories. From the religious to the pagan, a well-balanced walk!
We pass the restaurant Wolfl and head up Totes Moos. We
had planned to eat lunch once we got to Totes Moos, but there's another 1.3km
to go. Instead, just past a farmhouse, we sit by the side of the Forststrasse
Totenmoos and eat lunch, whilst looking out to a beautiful view. Now, the sun
is so hot that we have to slap on the suntan lotion.
Just before Totes Moos we hear a bell in the undergrowth
and look for a cow. The people of the Dolomites seem obsessed with bells, they
chime continuously from churches or from herds of cattle or, in this case, from
a dog. Alistair & I are relieved when it darts off into the undergrowth -
not because we are afraid of dogs, but because one once followed us for miles
in Spain and we couldn't get it to leave us. It was a beautiful animal & we
were worried it would never be reunited with its owners. The whole episode has
scarred us!
Anyway, when we reach Totes Moos (a lake and a shrine) we
decide the weather is nice enough to leave the E5 track we've been following
all day and take route 1 instead. We miss the deviation onto route 1a to a
viewpoint, but as we've climbed a fair bit uphill and the notes say there's
another similar viewpoint a bit later, we press on. There's been a lot of
recent forestry work and some of the way marked trees have been cut down. The
ground is also littered with bits of pine trees. At the next viewpoint we are
glad we never retraced our steps to find the first viewpoint. There may be a
view on some days, but today it's just a wall of white, we decide it's not
worth hanging about like we did at the Bletterbach viewpoint, too much rain has
fallen for that amount of mist to clear.
We carry on through the woodland to eventually reach the
Schneider Weisen bar and decide to stop for a drink. As we sit in the scorching
sunshine, four people appear with the dog we saw earlier in the day. The dog
looks exhausted and its fur is matted with pine twigs. From their conversation
with another couple outside, we understand this is not their dog, it has just
followed them to the bar. Phew! After about 10 minutes a hunting type bloke
appears and sometimes you don't need words to understand what's being said. He
lovingly picks the twigs out of the dog's coat, gives him a biscuit &
offers him some water, which he eventually gulps down. We are glad the story
has a happy ending.
We have an equally happy ending, when we reach the
gorgeous Gasthof Kohlern. This is another place where we took the upgrade
option & when we enter our room and see the spectacular views over Bolzano
and the surrounding mountains, we decide it was money well spent and that we're
going to enjoy our time here.
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