Meran / Merano

After finishing our hike, we returned to the car and drove the short distance into the city of Meran/Merano. We parked near the chair lift and let it carry us up to where Tyrol Village is. It is pretty much a tourist trap, but it is positioned so that one has a great view of Tyrol Castle, which was what we wanted.

View across Meran

View from Tyrol Village towards Tyrol Castle

By the way, I loved the ride on the chair lift! I prefer this type to the closed cabins, as long as it is not cold, windy or rainy - as you can see from the pictures, it was none of that.

We did not walk all the way to the castle, as it was already late in the afternoon and it would probably not have been open for visitors anymore anyway by the time we'd have gotten there.

Instead, after admiring it from afar, we walked back to the chair lift and were soon carried back down.

You can read the basic facts about Meran and Tyrol Castle on Wikipedia; just click on the words here on my post.

A short stroll through Meran's beautiful city, and we were ready to go home and get changed for dinner.

One more day left before we were going to have to say good-bye to this beautiful area (and our holiday)!

A Day of Rest

Wednesday, the 8th of May, was our resting day.

It did not look very promising weather-wise, and so we booked a massage each and spent the entire day at the hotel, making full use of the beautiful spa area with indoor and outdoor swimming pools, two saunas (one hot and the other one REALLY hot), a steam bath and more. Surprisingly enough, not many other guests had the same idea, so we had almost completely free range of everything.
Coffee and cake in the afternoon were welcome, as was another lovely dinner later.

On Thursday, the 9th of May, we were going to make up for all that laziness!
A dramatic display of clouds greeted us first thing in the morning, but no rain was forecast, and so we drove a short way northwards from our village to the starting point of another tour we'd found in our guide book.

Please bear with me - this post is chock full of pictures of mountains and views from mountains into valleys and towards more mountains. Somewhat boring and repetitive if you have not been there yourself, so I apologise for that. We simply could not get enough of it all!

Sometimes the path was like this...

...and sometimes like this.

Zoomed onto Castle Tyrol (Schloss Tirol / Castello Tirolo), the place that gave the whole region its name.

Finally at the highest point of today's tour!

It was all downhill from here.

This one is for Kay - you know why, don't you?

Upwards was a strenuous hike, but the views were so rewarding, and the shandy we had on the terrace of a rustic mountain inn was very nice, too.
The way back down was just as strenuous, as the paths were sometimes rather steep and rocky, with just mossy rocks or a tree to hold on to. Good job it wasn't wet underfoot!

It was not all that late by the time we reached the car again, but too late to make it to the cake buffet at our hotel, and so we drove into the city of Meran/Merano to have a closer look around there, as you will see in my next post.

Too Much Snow!

The second day of our stay in South Tyrol, May 7, started off sunny just like the day before. We had already decided where to go today; this time, it took us about half an hour to drive to the starting point of the tour.

View from the hotel, just after 9:00

Driving there, we already noticed patches of snow along the road and on the slopes, and more as we drove higher up. We still decided to go on and parked the car where our guide book said to park.

As we hiked upwards and onwards, it became colder and there was even more snow. In some places, there were drifts of snow, and where the sun would not reach, it looked very wintery.

After we reached Lake Tret with Felix's Weir, we only hiked on for a little more before we decided to be reasonable and turn round. On a slightly different route than before, we reached the car safe and sound. It was the first time we broke off a hike, but we really were not equipped to meet more snow than we already had.

Back at the hotel, we were just in time for coffees and the cake buffet - taken on the sunlit terrace! The rest of the afternoon until dinner was spent most pleasantly and leisurely in the spa area.