Bolzano

We left early the next morning and took the train to Verona (about 5 hours). Amy and Megan got off in Verona and generously offered to take ALL our luggage to our hotel there. (How they managed five people’s luggage with two girls, I can only imagine). Jamie, Shane, and I continued on to Bolzano up near the Austrian border. The train ride up there was my favorite ride. We all sat with our ipods in watching the cliffs that were speckled with little castles. One huge castle was right in the center of the cliff. I’m pretty sure it was helicopter access only. Jamie is a geologist, so she was anxious for a good view of the Dolomites. You can imagine our disappointment when we pulled into foggy, rainy Bolzano. Bolzano has a cool feel to it. Signs are written in German and Italian and gargoyles sit on their church spires. After an delicious Bolzano burger (really, it was unlike any burger I’ve had… SO good!) we decided to look into renting a car. Maybe if we drove up the mountain, we could get above the clouds and see the Dolomites. We found one for 40 euro and decided it would be worth it. We were right. This turned into one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. We drove up the mountain side into these picturesque mountain villages. Really, they decided to build communities in the most random places. The further we went up the more encouraged we were by the thinning fog. Soon we broke through the clouds, and got a beautiful view, but not of the Dolomites. Those remained shrouded behind a veil of clouds the entire time. Well, almost the entire time. There was one moment when we vaguely saw mountains with snow on them, so technically we can say we saw the Dolomites, but it wasn’t the jagged peaks we had hoped for. On our train back to Verona, we entertained ourselves with a new game. The ipod game: Find a song on your ipod that you all have in common (for us it was Coldplay, Fix You). Give one of your ear buds to someone else. Then try and synchronize your ipods so you’re all playing the same song at the exact same time. Good times.