Travel With Betsy

Since last we connected, the 4 travelers have climbed the Dolomites (by car of course) and enjoyed some of the local wine! But, not at the same time!

As I mentioned in my last post, we spent 3 nights in Castelrotto, Italy. This is in the Dolomite area near Bolzano, which is in the northeastern part of Italy. Mike had a dream of driving through the Dolomite area, I had a dream of wine tasting in the Bolzano area and Gene had a dream of driving all of us in the car for 2 days. So, it worked out for all of us! In reality, I don’t think Gene knew what he was signing up for. He gets a gold star for getting us all through the increasing elevations and hairpin turns of the Dolomites and the narrow and winding roads of the wine country in Bolzano. It was a great few days in great part because of his excellent driving skills and unending patience.

When we got to Castelrotto last week on Wednesday, we went through the orientation of our hotel with the Italian/German hotelier (you remember him from an earlier post), had dinner, and went to bed. We wanted to be fresh for our trip through the Dolomites on Thursday. Again, we fun seekers didn’t want to miss anything! As it turns out, I don’t think we did!

On Thursday, we were up again at the crack of dawn to begin our trek through the Dolomites. The hotelier insisted that we would all participate in a hike through the many hiking trails in their area. He was pretty darn insistent that this is what we would be doing on Thursday. But, he hadn’t really gotten to know Mike and his distaste for walking. I gently explained to him that some of us in the group were better walkers than others and that we would be driving through the Alps, not walking. He wasn’t happy, but eventually accepted our deviation from the usual pattern his customers follow and wished us well.

With Gene at the wheel and me as the navigator, we started out. The drive was spectacular. We spend the day twisting and turning our way to the highest point we could go in the Dolomites, about 3200 meters, a little over 10,000 feet. Not quite as high as Pike’s Peak, but not too shabby! The climb in elevation was accompanied by some of the most hair-raising, hairpin turns I think I have ever seen…..and on extremely narrow roads. In some places you couldn’t see what was coming in your direction and had to just continue blindly, hoping that no one would be there to greet you as you rounded the bend. We only had one encounter with a bus that was coming in our direction. We literally had to stop and back up on the winding road so that the bus could come forward. WHEW!

When we got done with that little adventure, we decided we all needed a coffee and bathroom break. I don’t know about the others, but I was checking to be sure I didn’t have any skid marks on my undies……WOW!

Gene did a great job….said he was having fun……also said he would have had more fun if he could have gone faster! As it turns out, Carrie has car-sickness occasionally, so we were forced to go at a lower speed in order to prevent a car sickness episode in the back seat. Who knows where that would lead! I’m sorry for the car-sickness, but am glad for the slower speed. No reason to be Mario Andretti on these kinds of roads!

All in all, an amazing day viewing some breath-taking vistas.

The next day, Friday, was allotted for wine-tasting. Again, Gene was the driver and I was the navigator. Before we started out, we stopped at the desk to talk to our German/Italian hotelier about his favorite wineries. Again, he insisted that we should take the walking tour of the Dolomite area. Very insistent. What is it with these people? Not everyone likes to walk…oh well.

In the end, he gave us some very good ideas of places where we could taste the local wine. The suggestions were great! As it turns out, the Alto Adige area has some very excellent wines, but finding them is something of a challenge!

We followed the road out of Castelrotto, through Bolzano and towards Merano, as instructed, and found the wine regions. However, we were expecting to taste at the vineyards themselves, which is not how it works in this area. Not knowing this, Gene and I, self-appointed leaders, decided that we would veer off of the main road and drive into the vineyards. Surely, we would find the tasting rooms there.

We weren’t having much luck, so I said, I think we need to stop and ask someone. I am always the designated direction-finder. I don’t speak the language, but I seem to be able to extrapolate the information that I need in between their broken English and my non-existent Italian. Or, it could be that I am just persistent and keep digging until I pry out every tidbit of information I can get. I think that was the case here.

We first stopped at a small bed and breakfast, an agriturismo I think. There was a sign…..looked professional enough. I walked back into the complex and found an open bedroom with a maid cleaning up a room. I, of course, started with my usual….”Speak English?” In return, I got a blank stare. This gal had no English at all…not one word. She gestured me to the house in the front where, I am assuming, the owner was supposed to be. I made a ring around the house and came up empty. I thought about ringing the doorbell, but isn’t this just a little too pushy…even for me? I thought so and decided to admit defeat with this place. Probably my first total failure to get information since we have been on the road. What a disappointment. Oh, well! On to the next place.

The next stop was at a house in front of a big sign naming a winery that I remembered reading about. Great! This must a tasting place. I walked up to the door. It was locked. HMMMM…….There was a door bell, this time I was bold and rang. A little lady who was maybe 70 came to the door. Again, I went back to my “Speak English?”. She also gave me a blank stare and I thought, “UGHHHH, not again.” Then, she began to speak in very broken English. From what I could gather, we were at a place where we could do some tasting, but they were not open. If we could come back at 6:00 pm, we could do some tasting. I don’t think so….would be fun….but, no. Finally, a young man who worked for them walked by and directed us to town and some tasting rooms where we could try the wine. After this, we were READY for a drink! YIKES!

When we finally got organized, we had a great day. We tried the local varietals, which we enjoyed very much. The most unusual wine we had was called Lagrein. It is a very hearty wine that reminded me of a Tannat, somewhat tannic, but with some dark berry fruit flavors. We bought several bottles to take with us on our journey. YUM!

We also stopped along the way at a lake in the middle of the wine region and had a delicious lunch of soup and some local cheese and chutneys. The setting was beautiful and the food was quite tasty!

At our last (and best) winery stop, we chatted at length with the man who was pouring wine and talking to us about the characteristics of the wine and the vineyards. We really wanted to be able to find his wine somewhere in the United States. Sadly, they don’t import to the US. But, they do import to South Africa, our next vacation target. And, he has a lot of vineyard contacts there. A coincidence….maybe…but, I got his email address and am already picking his brain for ideas.

Already planning the next trip…..stay tuned!

This entry was posted on October 23, 2013 at 6:54 am and is filed under Europe, Group Travel, Uncategorized, Wine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.