By Juergen Wenzel
If there isn’t a breeze in the city of Berlin on hot days, the long-awaited summer can quickly tire. In such moments one understands why it was fashionable in the 19th century not to travel to the mountains in the winter season but in the summer months.
The “summer freshness” gives cooling and relaxation in the rich nature of the Alps. And it has experienced a true renaissance in recent years.
So it is very convenient that an airline is now offering a direct flight to the heart of South Tyrol, home of the Dolomites: Sky Alps has been connecting Berlin with Bolzano for a few months.
As the propeller plane flies over the increasingly hilly Bavarian lake landscape, I breathe deeply for the first time. The mountains are getting higher and higher and just under an hour after take-off, our plane is already descending again. Totally enthusiastic about the wonderfully practical and small Bolzano airport, the journey begins as it should: very relaxed.
Just eight minutes after landing I take my suitcase off the belt and a minute later I’m standing at the airport exit and taking a deep breath: what wonderful air! It then takes me another six minutes by taxi to get to the center of Bozen. Everything seems like the positive counterpart to the annoying and time-consuming BER chaos. Incidentally, the airport and the airline are operated by the Karstadt and KaDeWe investor René Benko (45).
Makes the heart melt in passing Photo: Juergen Wenzel
In the winding arcaded streets of the South Tyrolean capital, you can stroll wonderfully and aimlessly. Here you will find everything good from the region: wine, bacon, herbs, fine home cooking and, above all, warmth. A hilly landscape of vineyards stretches around Bolzano, as the town of 100,000 is called in Italian.
Herbs are grown, dried and packaged for sale on the sunny slopes of the “Schmiedthof” 1400 meters above the Eisacktal Photo: Juergen Wenzel
From the cozy hut accommodation to the spectacular wellness hotel (for example the “Weinegg Resort”, from which you can go on excursions with the hotel’s own Vespa), this magical setting offers all kinds of different accommodation options. The great thing is that many innkeepers and hoteliers are also their own winegrowers with attached vineyards.
Hiking with pleasure
An important event is already waiting for me in Vinschgau (a wonderful half-hour drive away): At the “South Tyrolean Speck Day” in Naturns, everything that the famous bacon industry in the region (28 producers) has to offer is offered with music and wine.
Every mountain hut has its own secret recipe for the most diverse variants of the famous South Tyrolean dumplings Photo: Juergen Wenzel
With a gondola you can easily reach the “Meraner Höhenweg”. The hiking trail extends over a length of around 100 kilometers and was designed as a “bond of friendship from village to village and mountain pasture to mountain pasture”. With magnificent viewing plateaus. And alpine huts where you can spend the night or just try a snack (e.g. bacon dumplings and Schlutzkrapfen).
You can hike from village to village and alpine pasture to alpine pasture via the Meraner Höhenweg (100 km long). Photo: picture alliance / Wagner
In general, “pleasure hiking” seems to have been born in South Tyrol: you have to hike more than 150 kilometers if you want to cover the entire South Tyrolean Wine Route from Nalles in the north and Salurn in the south. With more than 4000 hectares, the Wine Route is the largest wine-growing region in the country, with grape varieties such as Lagrein and grapes from which Veltliner, Pinot Noir and dessert wines such as Gewürztraminer and Rosenmuskateller are pressed.
And when the refreshing north breeze from Lake Garda (called Ora) kicked in punctually at noon while tasting in one of the wineries, I really understood the value of “summer freshness”. Splendid.
