Holleri, hollero: a Südttirol pic spam

[selenak]

It's become a family tradition to spend one week in September in Southern Tyrolia. As it's drawing to a close, here's what's been keeping me from the online world, aka, the place where I've been staying for the last seven days, with more under the cut:





Now if you've been following this journal for longer than a year, you might recall last year's pic spam, and thus also the most romantic of all Southern Tyrolia (which is in Italy, not Austria, for historical reasons) castles, near the village Tirol. Which is my daily sight:






The lower part looks like someone from a fairy tale should reside in it, doesn't it?



This area is apple country, when it isn't wine country. And now is harvest time:





One of the mountain villages is Halfling. Where they breed the horses of the same name:








St. Peter, the non-Roman edition:



St. Kathrein:



I love the local idea of a bus stop:





Covered bridges:



But really, you don't want to stay down in the valley where there are roads. You want to go up the mountain paths, starting with the so called Waal paths. A Waal isn't a whale, it's the local water system, which occasionally looks very pretty:






occasionally, you meet a random goat or two:




View from a Waalweg:





The village Schlanders in the Vinschgau, also seen from a Waalweg:



The Vinschgau itself is truly something:






High above the Vinschgau is the castle Juval.





Where the world's most famous mountaineer resides, who happened to be at home when the APs and I were wandering by:


(Reinhold Messner, if you're not up on your mountaineers.)

In addition to medieval castles currently owned by mountaineers, we visited palaces formerly used by empresses. This is Schloß Trautmannsdorf, for its awesome gardens:















You can also go much higher than the Waal paths and get to the top. Even if it's a bit cloudy now and then. View from the top of the mountains - the Hirzer mountain, to be precise:



How the Etsch valley around Meran looks on a cloudy day from above:



Never mind the clouds, though, there were lamas!







I mean:







And with this adorableness, I leave you to spend my last day in Southern Tyrolia!

Comments

[goodbyebird]

Damn. My brain kept stubbornly trying to interpret the pictures as paintings, even though I knew they weren't. I hope your vacation is at least half as nice as these pictures make it look ;)

[selenak]

It was just as nice, and I swear this is what the scenery looks lilke! And the food is utterly yummy.

[falena]

Lovely picspam!Such wonderful places!I've been to some bits of the Italian portion of South Tyro when I was wee so I don't remember much about it...Shame. Should visit again at some point.

I'm reading from my tiny smartphone screen so I can see just a tiny portion of the post as I scroll down. So when you talked about the greatest mountaineer I was like 'Will it be Messner? No idea how popular he is worldwide,' and he was! He's such an institution here in Italy. Though I must say the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Messner is this iconic bottled water ad. :D

[selenak]

Another visit would be utterly worth while! It's so drop dead gorgeous here!

I'll have to wait till I'm at home till I can watch the bottled water ad, though. :)

[falena]

Well, I'm going to Trentino in about a month, if my husband like it (he's never been), I can make a case for exploring further north in the future. :)


It's Just Messner on the top of a mountain, holding a bottle of water and going: "Altissima, purissima, levissima" (The highest, the purest, Levissima [brand name but it looks like a superlative in Italian]). It's just superfamous here. You're not missing much.

[wendelah1]

What an amazing trip. The top two photos look like fairy tale settings.

[selenak]

It's certainly how I imagine fairy tale castles to look like! I love this place.

[littlerhymes]

Wow, it really does look like a fairytale...

And awww, llamas! :D

[selenak]

The Llamas were the best. I loved them to bits.