As we drove up to this Tyrolean town, the smog & weather cleared to gorgeous autumn weather. This town was still in Italy, but it was most assuredly Austrian. The menus reverted back to mostly brown-gravied items. We were served one of the stranger food items that we’ve ever encountered. It was listed as Gnocchi e Spinachi in the Italian translation of the menu, and so I ordered it with the true sadness that comes with ordering the last Italian dinner that you will see for quite some time. What arrived though, was truly an inspired dish. Two oval German bread dumplings the size of large goose eggs arrived over a puddle of green pureed spinach, with a load of chopped sauteed ham over the dumplings, dusted with white melted cheese, and for the glamorous touch… the plate edge was decorated with paprika sprinkles. (This was a fine restaurant, after all.) Well, our reaction was complete shock, then we headed straight headlong into complete dining despondence. Ah, Austria. Oh, and I won’t mention the deep fried, heart-attack-on-a-plate, gigantic elephant ear pesto flat breads that they were selling to a line of Austrians at an outdoor food stall being washed down with equally gigantic beers… whimper.
Realizing that there were soon to be no end to the number of dumplings in our future, we looked for other things to amuse us in the town. The town was gorgeous in its Autumn foliage. There was a river running through the town with the Alps as a backdrop, and in the evening, some of the smallest bats that we’ve ever seen were zipping around in a feeding frenzy along the river’s edge. We had stepped into a fairy tale set, again.
The cathedral in town had been recently refurbished with an extreme use of gold gilding over its Baroque interior, and even to our jaded, seen one cathedral too many, eyes, we considered it impressive. It even had Tyrolean painting on the outside. We kept forgetting that we were still in Italy. (Well, other than the no-smoking ban… )
And finally, for other amusements, our Hotel was a Best Western and that came with an indoor swimming pool, including a smattering of white haired old ladies and men (yes, in Speedos, with not a care in the world about fashion), a hot tub (woo!) and a swimsuit spinner (now that’s luxury, baby).
