On our last full day in the Valley Ahrntal, we decided to visit one more lake, and head to Bolzano (or Bozen in German) which is the capital of South Tyrol.
This lake K chose was called Lago di Braies and we decided to drive as close to the lake as possible to minimise walking hehe. It was about an hour's drive away and so back to that one motorway leading out of Ahrntal Valley.
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| On our way towards the snow capped mountains |
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| A small lake we passed by on our way and there was a hotel right in front of this lake with a superb view |
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| A church near Lago di Braies |
It was pretty crowded when we arrived with almost no parking spaces. Again we saw the young and the old, families with young kids with many all geared up for a hike.
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| Breathtaking |
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| Two happy faces |
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| As it was raining the night before, the low clouds definitely added to the dramatic effect |
There was a footpath around the lake and so we followed it and walked for about 30min each way.
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| Seriously beautiful with the emerald coloured waters |
Most people stop at the 20-30min mark because there were toilets and benches for people to take a break. We managed to get a really good spot - the bench right in front of the lake.
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| And so we took a pit stop |
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| Our parting shot |
By the time we left the lake, it was about lunch time and we planned to drive another hour to Bolzano for a late lunch. After more than 30min on the highway, we soon realised that the GPS was bringing us to another town and we were baffled. What happened?! No idea. All we knew was that we were driving in the direction of Austria and that was not what we had planned! We were hungry and frustrated. We decided to go to the destination on the GPS anyway and see what's there. Hopefully we can find food.
Wow. What a nice surprise! We soon realised we were in a little pretty town right outside Austria called Vipiteno. There was one main street with restaurants and we saw many groups of cyclists making Vipiteno a stopover. (There are many good cycle routes in this region.) We tapped on the free wifi in the street to check Trip Advisor for a good lunch place and settled for the cafe inside Hotel Lamm. It was really good and we had a good meal. Again we were the only Asians in this small town.. by this time we were getting used to this fact.
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| Pretty and quaint town |
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| We were glad we stumbled upon this place |
We left after about 1.5h and debated if we should still drive to Bolzano. Well but we need to at least visit the capital right? Ok let's go. It was really hot (>30deg) and busy when we arrived in this big city. Cars were everywhere, roads were wide and had more than the one lane which we have been accustomed to in the past few days. There were people everywhere and we actually felt a bit overwhelmed. So different from where we came from! Interestingly we felt - for the first time in this trip - that we were in Italy. Everywhere else seemed less Italian than Bolzano. We had trouble finding a parking space and did a few rounds before finally finding one underground car park. We walked around in the heat and had to buy a gelato each (that's what you do in Italy right?). We had no idea where to go actually and relied on Google map to show us the main sights in this city. We gave ourselves 2h in this place before heading back to our new found comfort zone, i.e. in the mountains! Even though this place is much bigger than any of the towns or villages we have been to, I can only find 2 decent photos to share here lol. Don't get me wrong, we were still glad we managed to visit their capital city.
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| The main cathedral |
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| Enjoying our gelato in one of their main squares |
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