September 29, 2010
Day 5 - Auer to Trento: Deutsch? Italiano?
From Auer it was a slight downhill between apple orchards and vineyards back to the Etsch - or should I be calling it the Adige now? No, not yet. The language boundary is said to be Salurn, Salorno, another 15 kilometers farther. However, to judge by the language we had been hearing on the streets it's not a sharp boundary. We were already easing our way into Italian speaking Italy. This was sort of like seeing the mountains but not having to cycle up them; I could enjoy listening to this musical language but didn't have to struggle with speaking it. My German is fluent, my Italian rudimentary. Tomorrow in Trento it would be put to a challenging test.
We veered off the bike path to visit Neumarkt, a wine growing village with pleasant old houses and arcades. Further down the road we stopped in Salurn, the southernmost village in South Tyrol.
Again today the weather and scenery were magnificent and we felt compelled to make numerous stops for pictures, including some photo sessions where I wanted to try out my new, lightweight tripod to get pictures of us cycling together. This was nothing less than hilarious. I set the ten-second timer, ran to my bike, jumped on and we cycled off, hoping our timing was right and that we'd be in the picture.
We were looking forward to visiting the historical old town of Trento. First we thought it best to ask the tourist office for help in finding acccommodation in this busy city. Most hotels were full but they managed to find a somewhat pricey room outside the city center. After settling in, we didn't really feel like getting on our bikes again today and riding through traffic to visit the old part of town so we put it off until tomorrow. Instead we relaxed and had an excellent meal with a good local wine in the hotel restaurant.
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