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this little piggy went to Vinschgau
Last week we headed back to Vinschgau for more mountain biking adventures. We managed to work up an appetite and the above photo collage provides a few highlights. We tried to be better prepared and bought the regional food guide, Genießen in Südtirol: Gastronomieführer Vinschgau. It helped a bit especially for discovering the hidden Biergarten nestled in the woods in Latsch and scoring a sweet bowl of fresh picked strawberries in Martell.
The opening hours of most restaurants are a lot of times hit and miss for crazies like us who spend hours pedaling up a mountain just for the thrill to speed downhill in 20 minutes. Often times we arrived in town around 3pm to discover kitchens were closed until dinner. Lunch sometimes included a heaping bowl of gelato. Since I’m not a big souvenir collector bought the cookbook, Südtiroler Leibgerichte by Hanna Perwanger, hopefully this Oma’s mad cooking skills will rub off on me.
And we so dined…
Gasthaus Krone
Jausenstation Bierkeller
Pension Gasthof Zufritt
saved a pedestrian lately?
Oh wise, determined lady crossing Impler Street. You were looking on the ground and probably complaining to yourself about the heat. It’s easy to forget about the bike lane you so nonchalantly approached. Little did you know how close you were to being squashed like a, eh… nevermind.
Normally, I’m usually less forgiving to your kind. I don’t own a bell (I think those who have one, go overboard), so I sing out a yoohoo to break a would-be victim’s trance. But I was preoccupied myself this time as to the whereabouts of my BWL assignment. And had I not been riding on a late Monday morning perhaps too fast for those who haven’t had their 10 o’clock Krönung and Semelbrot, I could have reacted in way that saved us both a scare.
It didn’t help that there was a fairly thick Bordstein (curb) separating the bike lane from the outer sidewalk either. So I did what I could instinctively, hit the breaks, attempted to steer away from the oblivious peds, but the curb and bike had other plans so I went a tumbling. Honestly, the only thing that filled my head as my shoulder ate the sidewalk was, ‘great they see my underwear!
The shaken-up, old lady with the tacky white shirt and gold embroidery kept saying sorry and it was her fault for not looking. She even offered her phone number. But I wasn’t interested in a Kaffee und Kuchen affair. I was relieved that I had no broken bones and she didn’t need a hip replacement.
It’s always good to roll..
Bike Tour: between Munich to Lake Starnberg
The city is beautiful but the country-side in the spring is just breathtaking. I can’t believe that we can take our bikes out of the dark, damp basement and then ride off into this in just minutes. We didn’t make the entire loop, which we made up on the way, since we had never ventured farther than Kloster Schäftlarn. But we made to Biergartens, one at Lake Starnberg, (btw the Strandhouse Starnberg serves very good thin crust pizza) and one at Schäftlarn.
After the journey I looked it up on Google Maps and was amazed at the distance we covered and just the view I was in the middle of. I wanted to reconstruct the way but I lost the path twice so the effort seemed pointless. We made this trip in the middle of May 2008.
Related Links:
http://www.wasserpark-starnberg.de/
http://www.bayerninfo.de/
http://www.bettundbike.de/
the roads of Munich..
..drive me batty. I had every intention today of taking a boring, 6.5 hour Erste-Hilfe Kurs (first-aid course) at the Ostbahnhof, a place I had never visited above ground.
The streets proved a complicated mess while trying to navigate my bike with my hand-written directions taped to my bike lamp. I was under the gun and thus I probably missed a turn or two in the process. I nearly gave up.
Or lets just say I did give up. It’s a common story with me and this city. Sometimes I’m dead on the money and arrive on time, other times I could just shoot myself. I wasn’t entirely lost. It’s just one of those bouts of knowing where you are but not knowing how it relates to where you want to be.
So after consulting my crusty-but-trusty, city-center map, I set out to find the class without further delays and “if I make it- fine, if I don’t- I’ll know how to get there in the next week.” When I arrived at the train station it was easy to spot the course location. Hopes were rejuvenated. But when I walked in, the room was dark and an exacerbated woman just started blabbering at me.
She said she tried getting an instructor but out of her 35 subs, none were reachable. She blamed it on the Oktoberfest. Ach! Blöd-fest! My love for the O-fest diminishes once everyday life is distrupted. The first impression that flashed through my head was that the instructors were getting wasted at the Wiesn’. Later it occurred to me that these poor guys are most likely working their asses off to save the drunken lives of those who can’t handle their beer in a responsible manner.
You know, my friends? It is truly okay not to get yourself all obliterated in one evening. After the 4th Maß (4 liters) in 2 hours, you can’t even taste that good beer you are downing. How is that any fun?
Cheers to you all during your visit at the Oktoberfest. Please don’t make those first-aid volunteers get medieval on your stomachs. Stay within your tolerance. Oh and welcome to the first signs of Autumn season!
