Our flight home departed Munich at 11:55am bound for San Francisco, arriving about 2:30pm (11.5 hours with the time change). We then had a three-hour layover before catching a flight to San Diego at 5:45pm and arriving about 7:15pm.

It was a great trip filled with new experiences, plenty of food and wine and many memories.

Elaina, Ralf and Martha from the Hotel Regina

The Dolomites

Memories of Ice Cream

Weinhaus Schneider Restaurant

Weinhaus Schneider Restaurant Interior

Kent’s Cheese Galette

We departed our hotel in Oberbozen at 10:00am bound for the Hilton Hotel at the Munich Airport. The journey took us about five hours with a comfort stop, ice cream and traffic.

After checking into the hotel for a quick freshening up we boarded a train for the 45-minute ride into the center of Munich at the Marienplatz stop. There we had a couple of hours to explore the town before meeting up for dinner.

Kent and I headed out to Maximillian Road to see the Rodeo Drive of Munich. All of the top designers have exclusive shops along this street. The majority of the clientele appeared to either be Asian or Middle Eastern. I suppose these are the people with all of the money to spend.

For dinner, we met up with the group at the Weinhaus Schneider Restaurant. There we started the evening with a glass of a sweet wine followed by endless bottles of red and white wine. Everyone ordered what they wanted from the menu including dishes like pork ribs, veal ribs, fondue dishes and Weiner Schnitzel. For dessert we all had a plate with chocolate cake, apple strudel and large platters of fresh fruit with a chocolate fondue. It was all very good but once again, too much to eat. Our former student, Marc Fritz, was able to join our group for dinner. It was good to see him again before leaving Germany.

As a little thank you gift to our tour leaders Kent and Christine, one of our fellow travelers, Linda White, wrote a song. The tune was to the song Deep in the Heart of Texas and the words are as follows. The whole group got up and did their best to serenade Kent and Christine with it. The dots represented four claps.

We get quite fit
And the schnapps won’t quit ••••
When we’re with Kent and Christine

The cows come home
The beers will foam ••••
When we’re with Kent and Christine

Kent talks a lot
We can believe it. Or not••••
When we’re with Kent and Christine

Just one more mile
And always smile••••
When we’re with Kent and Christine

They’re always there
With lots to share••••
When we’re with Kent and Christine

So here are toasts
To our great hosts••••
We thank you Kent and Christine.

After dinner we all headed back to our hotel via the train for our flights home the following morning.

Kent and Mark on the Freud Trail

River through Merano

Mark with Elizabeth

Kent and his Pizza

The Palace Hotel

Merano Architecture

This being our last day in Oberbozen and a free day to explore whatever we wanted on our own. We chose to take the Gondola down to Bolzano where we caught a train back to the town of Merano. We wandered the beautiful old town pedestrian streets with shops and restaurants of all sorts. The river meanders through the center of town with pedestrian and bike paths on both sides. Many hotels, restaurants and gelato shops line the riverfront.

We stopped in at the Cathedral of St. Nicholas, first mentioned in the year 1220 before expanding and taking its final shape in 1465. The architecture of the church is gothic with well-preserved stained-glass windows and a large rose window. Next to the church stands a tall clock tower with a sundial. We also explored a smaller chapel behind the church called St. Barbara’s Chapel.

Across the river from the old town is the Empress Elizabeth Park with a statue of Empress Elizabeth (SiSi) of Austria, Queen of Hungary. It was Elizabeth who made frequent visits to Merano for its wonderful microclimate and waters. She helped turn the town into a popular spa for the aristocracy, which contributed to the growth of the town. The park has a seated, life-size statue of Elizabeth hewn out of Laas marble by sculptor Hermann Klotz in 1903. The Laas marble is very white, is quarried near here and was also used in the rebuilding of the ground zero subway station in New York City.

Kent attempted to sneak into the Palace Hotel to use the rest room, but was quickly asked to leave when they found that he was not a guest. This lovely looking hotel opened in 1906 on what was once the Maur Castle dating back to 1676. The luxury hotel with 100 rooms, including 29 suites, is known for its health and beauty treatments including Detox programs.

We had lunch on the main street in old town at an historic Italian restaurant called the Flora-Trattoria which dates back to the year 1400. We sat outside at a table where we enjoyed eggplant parmigiana, pizza and a fruit smoothie.

By midafternoon we walked back to the train station where we boarded a train back to Bolzano. From Bolzano we took the Gondola back up the mountain to Oberbozen where our hotel is located. There Kent had the afternoon cake and we visited with fellow guests before heading to our room for a rest and packing.

For dinner we had a special awards dinner in a small private dining room in the hotel lobby. Kent and Christine handed out awards (think wine, maps, hats, chocolate) for all types of silly things that have happened during the last couple of weeks. Mark got an award for wearing the best hiking shoes (not) and falling on the trail while Kent got an award for always being fun and pleasant. It was a great dinner with plenty of wine, delicious food and lots of laughs.

Park Hotel Holzner

Kent on his way to town

Kitchen Tour

Lichtenstern Ice Cream

Farmhouse Museum

Beekeeping Museum

Bread Made for Winter

This was a fairly quiet day in comparison to some we had in the past couple of weeks. In the morning we had a kitchen tour to see how the chef and his staff prepare the daily breakfast and dinners for thirty guest rooms. He also prepares meals for the staff and the family that run the hotel. The kitchen is a decent size with a large pantry, wine storage area, dishwashing area, walk-in refrigerator and freezers and a large family dining table for the staff. They prepare many things from scratch in the kitchen, e.g., the cakes and strudel and pasta. They also make their own preserves each year and can them.

We walked over near the Gondola to visit a local hotel called the Park Hotel Holzner which has been here since 1908. Four generations of the Holzner family have run the hotel during the past 100 plus years. The hotel is quite beautiful today having obviously been remodeled and expanded over the years. It has tennis courts, indoor/outdoor swimming pool, spa, children’s areas and lush green lawns overlooking the valleys vineyards.

At noon we set out on the train to the town of Klobenstein where we walked through the town to take the Sigmund Freud walking trail. This promenade reminds people of the 150th birthday of Sigmund Freud which was celebrated March 6, 2016. Freud spent his holidays here in the summer of 1911 at the Hotel Post at Collalbo. The trail takes about 90 minutes to walk from one end to the other and has historical markers along the way depicting things about Freud and his time here.

Along the way we stopped at the Hotel Lichtenstern where Kent and Christine treated everyone to beers, water and ice cream. This hotel is known for its variety of home-made ice cream sundaes. Some of the sundaes feature chopped fruit, some chocolate, others warm raspberry sauce and then there was the amaretto laced sundae. Everyone enjoyed the stop.

From there we walked about 20 minutes to a beekeeping museum housed in the historic Plattnerhof Farm. This is one of the Renon’s (a province of South Tyrol) oldest farmhouses dating back to the early 1400’s. Two sisters had owned the home until 1978 and lived there without electricity, running water and indoor plumbing. It was restored in the 1980’s and now houses the region’s largest collection of beekeeping tools and machinery. You can also see some of the furnishings left in the house and how the two women lived, including a straw bed, wood burning stoves for heat and an outhouse built on to the side of the house. The roof is made of eight tons of rye grass woven together. There were several glass sided bee hives where you can see the bees at work.

When we were leaving the beekeeping museum it began to rain so we decided to take the train the remainder of way back to our hotel. Unfortunately, everyone else who was out had the same idea and the trains were completely packed with people. After about a 45-minute wait, we were able to push our way onto a train for the short ride back to the hotel.

Local Traditional Dress

Half Lingers Horses

Oompah Band

Cattle

Earthen Pyramids

Earthen Pyramids

When cattle in the alpine summer grazing pastures are moved to the valley for the fall it is a widely celebrated festival. They say that 2,100 alpine farms are nestled in the Dolomites with 110,000 head of cattle, 70,000 sheep, 5,500 goats and 2,000 horses. This was the day that they celebrate the moving of the cattle.

We left our hotel by taxi and headed for Pemmern where we began a one mile walk up the mountain to a spot where the cattle drive could be seen. Along the way we learned that the locals start out early in the morning walking towards the festivities stopping at local bars for beer. The locals are all dressed in their traditional dresses and lederhosen with plaid shirts. We shared the path with hundreds of locals also making their way up the hillside.

Once we arrived at the festivities, we found an Oompah band playing local tunes and thousands of locals eating sausages and drinking beer. Many had brought blankets and found a spot on the rolling hills to settle in for the morning. The Alpine horn players arrived to play the horns.

Also, of interest were the local cowboys or cattle handlers who carried very long braided whips. They would crack the whips which would make such loud noises you would think that they had caps or some type of explosive in the whips. Some of the cowboys would stand on top of their horses and crack their whips while balancing.

About noon, the cowboys would herd the cattle down the trail past the crowds using the whips to move the cattle. There were also many beautiful horses called Half Lingers that were also being moved. This cattle run and festivities dates back to 1927 and the proceeds of the refreshment stands benefit the Oompah band.

After the cattle were herded past us, they were corralled into a large enclosure where you could wander out and see the horses and cattle up close. Historically this would have been a time when the cattle would have been bought, sold and traded.

We then began our journey back down the hillside to our starting point where there was another festival set up similar to the festival for Assumption Day. There were hundreds of picnic tables and benches where you could order beer, sausage, half chickens, French fries and desserts. Strolling musicians wandered around performing for the crowds. Several vendors had tents set up selling local handmade wood carvings, food items, desserts and more.

Once we had a bite to eat, we headed down the mountain to the town of Klobenstein where we walked about 30-minutes to the town of Longomoso to see the earth pyramids. These pyramids are natural earth formations that are constantly evolving because of constant erosion. The pyramids are created when rain and weather conditions erode the soil around rocks on the surface of the ground over time. The soil continues to erode around the rocks until the rock is standing high above the ground on a thin pyramid. Over time the pyramids continue to grow taller and thinner until the rock on the top finally falls off the top. Once this happens the earth pyramid begins to slowly erode until it is completely dissolved into the soil. It is a very interesting thing to see and there are many places around this area where you can find the earthen pyramids.

We took the train back to Oberbozen. After a rest, we had dinner with our group and retired to our room for the night.