I have always wanted to do this.......

And by "this", I mean go to the bakery and say...

I will take one of everything!

Which is exactly what I did while my parents where here.

Can you just imagine my poor mom and dad being forced to try all of these hot pastries?

You can tell that they are probably just terrible?
Unfortunately I do not have the names for them all at present, I will have to come back and fill them in later.

You can imagine the sugar crash we experienced later in the day!

Hütte Essen!

No trip to Austria would be complete without visiting a Hütte! Hütte are rustic, "rest stops", if you will, on the mountains. They are usually very high up, offering the most remarkable views, and some of them are only reachable by hiking. They are places to go to get out of the weather, warm up, relax, and have a drink or snack before finishing your hike or ski day in the Alps!



Behold Hütte Essen! It is grilling your own meat at the table while smothering it in broth. I am not sure if it is called Hütte Essen because we are eating it in a Hütte, or because the conicular shape of the thing you cook the meat on resembles a Hut, or hat, in German.



Needless to say all of this goes very well with many beers and a schnaps at the end.

Odds and Ends in Berchtesgaden

Berchtesgaden used to be a hot destinations for Americans during a time when many American military were stationed over in Germany. It was only an hour drive away, so for the sake of making a "then and now" comparison of sorts, we went there!

We also wanted to go to the top of the Eagles Nest but decided against it after learning the price.



I was not in control of the camera that day, or maybe I was just overwhelmed with excitement at discovering a pottery studio....


...or maybe the discovery of a cafe that served THIS AMAZING SPAGHETTI EIS!

Whatever the reason I do not have many pictures! I am especially sad that I did not get one of the crazy hat shop run by an equally crazy lady! You need to ask my mom about that one. Yet, I do have this picture of Jason playing on an kiddie toy??

Because we went to the town first, we missed the last boat tour of the Königsee. I guess that we have our own See in Zell am See, but this one has some very dramatic cliffs.

Innsbruck with Mom and Dad

On the way back from Italy we made a stop in Innsbruck, where I was studying.

We had traditional Sachertorte, although originally a from Wien/Vienna, it was still fabulous here on the west side of Austria.

Trento

I just do not understand how one town in Italy seems to be cuter than the next. It also seems that the older and more worn a building gets in Italy, the more beautiful it is.

Not that I found that to be the case in Trento. On the way back from Lake Garda with the parents, we just decided to make a quick stop for a bite to eat in a random town and so we discovered Trento.



It had beautiful painted buildings, enough romantic streets to wander, and a beautiful castle.

Summer is done....

Summer is done and I never made it out on the paddle boat with a slide. It taunted me everyday, begging to be taken out to the middle of the frigid lake with a chilled Grüner Veltliner. I still have so many pictures to post, including more from my parents visit and our trip to Croatia, Montenegro and Albania. Sadly, school has started leaving me with little or no time to spare... no worries, we still have procrastination.

Lago di Garda/Lake Garda: Getting Lost in Malcesine

We drove north along the coast of Lake Garda and discovered the quaint town of Malcesine sitting on a hill overlooking the lake. Artist galleries, shops, cafes and restaurants were nestled in the narrow streets.

The town hugs the Castillo Scaligero, a 13th century fortress that is a prominant landmark.

Here are baby olive trees!!
The mountains seem to jut straight up from the lake, so there are no streches of flat land from the waters edge. For most of the drive the road is narrow and it is straight down on oneside and straight up on the other.

Lake Garda is obviously a big tourist destination and hotels were quite expensive at this time. German seemed to be the second most spoken language after Italian. In my quest to stay in places with "character" I booked a room overlooking the lake in the small town of Pregasina.

It was the most precious hotel, although a bit loud, the rooms were cute and the owners, a short stubby bossy wife and tall skinny overly nervous husband, along with their apparantly "regular" clientel, seemed to come straight off a BBC comedy sitcom.

The Hotel Rosa Alpina (the website looks much more put together than the hotel is actually run) had a marvelous view.

Lago di Garda/Lake Garda: Tooling around Sirmione

We ended our week with a drive up Lago di Garda, stopping at the occasional quaint town. Sirmione is at the very south of the lake, and had a small historical section jutting out away from the loads of hotels and guesthouses. It was busting at it's seams with tourists, especially those who seem to go from white to red instantly in the sun.

Still, the town was very cute and well kept. We had a picnic lunch and admired the blue the water and then strolled through town.

Here mom found an olive tree. Olive oil is a big product of the region and there were trees everywhere.

I never pass up Gelato, especially in Italy!

Someone is getting tired of waiting for us while we looked at the shops!!
Here are some amazingly large lemons!
We took turns playing "Who's Cuter??"

Verona

Really, Italy is just full of beautiful, picturesque towns to wander through. One is simply more stunning than the next. I feel similar about Italy as I do about India, you need more than a lifetime to just see everything!


Since we really only had about 5 days this trip to explore the region, we only had about a day in Verona.

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was "set" in Verona, well actually Siena, but you can visit several fictional settings of the play thoughout the city. Here is a statue in honor of Juliet, in the courtyard of her home, under the balcony, where supposedly the star-crossed lovers met.

Needless to say there is some sort of tourist "it brings you good luck to put your hand on her breast" trashy tale... what does that have to do with the play?? Poor girl's right breast could blind you it has been "polished" so many times....poor Romeo is rolling in his crypt.

We enjoyed drinks and a lovely dinner with a view of the Castel San Pietro.

Verona also has several Roman edifices such as the Arena here.

Hot Minute in Vicenza

As I mentioned before, Mondays are slow to start in Italy. We went to Vincenza for only a few hours Monday morning just to stroll around the (empty) streets and admire some architechture.

Veneto Region: Wineries

We did not know that things in Italy are not usually open on Mondays, or at least not until late in the afternoon, which to me seems like a brilliant idea. Many of the Museums in smaller towns seemed to be closed, as well as most of the shops and restaurants.

Our drive from Vicenza to Verona is in the Veneto region, which is one of the foremost producing wine regions in Italy.

I never thought much of Tom-Tom's until we discovered that it provided winery locations. Sure, it had helped us navigate through Italy, find parking, gas stations, our hotels, but WINERIES!!!! Magical!!

Wineries were open on Mondays!

Wineries in Italy are nothing like those in Napa Valley. The prices are very reasonable and apparently they do not get even a fraction of the traffic that Napa gets, if any. At the first winery we stumbled across we were greeted by the barefoot cut-off jeans wearing owner who joined us for a few tastes.


In fact, I am sure this owner was surprised if not confused by my broken linguistic masterpiece question posed using a combination of Italian/Spanish/French/Portuguese ..."Can we taste your wine??"

I am sure he understood, perhaps his puzzled look was because it was before noon.


The landscape was magnificent and we stumbled across several quaint towns and fortresses like this one in Soave.


Through a series of hilly vineyards we followed the strada del vino or "wine road" which featured special road signs providing information on grapes and the wines that they were made into.

The Tom-Tom knows where the wineries are, but the roads to them are often narrow and resembling service roads. Oftentimes we were forced to abandon the mission.

The most appreciated wines in the region come from the provinces of Treviso, Verona, Padova, Venice, and Vicenza. The area around Verona, with its temperate climate and hilly surrounding, is believed to have cultivated grapes since the Bronze Age (I had to look this fact up!).

This day of exploring for me really was one of the highlights of our trip.