I have told you before I don’t love the mountains. How even though I grew up in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains I need salt and sand and open vistas. I find all those twisty turny roads with looming beauty just the teensiest bit claustrophobic. I definitely don’t ski. When Steve, one of Mark’s best pals, (they have known each other since the first grade) said he was coming to visit I knew that meant a trip to the mountains was part of the plan.1 I left logistics up to Mark and Steve. I offered a few meal suggestions.
The plan was to see Cortina in its post olympics glow and then have a late lunch at this abbey, maybe stop at this museum high up in the mountains. That is not what happened. It was Easter weekend and there were a few wrong turns. Here is everything we did in this small part of Sud Tirol on a map. In case you are the one in charge of navigating.
My annotated maps are not usually included in my free guides. Dozens of private annotated maps to things like artichokes in Rome, Eating on a budget in Venice and Trastevere secrets are one of the things that come with your paid subscription to Gillian Knows Best.
Let someone else do the navigating with a Walks Devour tour.
After an early start, getting to the rental car in Venice involves a boat and a bus, we needed a second breakfast. We stopped in the town of Vittorio Veneto in the prosecco hills. The town is named in honor of an important WW1 battle but we were there for coffee and pastries. The parking lot in front of Pasticceria Dolomiti was full, always a good sign. We found a table and ordered all of the cinnamon rolls left in the case.
I wasn’t paying attention so I am not sure how we veered off course but after a slow drive by of the very pretty Lago di Santa Croce we were not heading towards Cortina. Instead we climbed and climbed and climbed. Up to the San Pellegrino pass. It was lunchtime. Thankfully there was still a ski spot open. We stopped at Chalet Isabella. The menu was full of dishes to fuel a day going up and down a snowy mountain. I ordered the tagliatelle al ragu di cervo.
The purpose of this trip was to see the ancestral town that Steve’s relatives left behind for a new life in America. If your last name is not Natz, I am not sure how much you will get out of this small hamlet. It does look like a terrific place to base yourself in the summer if long mountain hikes are your thing. We were there on a spectacular sunny March afternoon and saw maybe 4 other people.
I will always stop in a grocery store and Oberweitzhof Feinkost is a very good one. There was a bar set up to taste all of the cured meat, sausages, and cheeses and shelves full of grappa, wine, chocolate and apple products.
Restaurant, Pizzeria, Bar Putzer: The place where we stayed the night in-between Natz and Bressenone was also a brewery. Handy for my neopatentato driver. We ordered beers and pizzas with white asparagus and ham and goulash for dinner and slept well in the high mountain air.
The next morning was Easter Sunday. We had not made any plans for Easter Sunday. We headed down to Bressanone and found a sunny spot at a cafe in the main piazza and listened to the morning bells ring and to a traditional Tyrolean band play. Rather than try and find somewhere that could squeeze us in on Easter Sunday with no reservations we decided on a late lunch at the Autogrill. The Autogrill in Adige Brennero Ovest to be exact.2 What’s not to love about an Autogrill? They make pasta fresh to order and have tiny bottles of Lambrusco. It was impossible to leave behind some of the hundreds of Lindt chocolate bars stacked in the middle of it all for our Easter chocolate.
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Steve’s last name is the same as a town in the Sud Tirol closer to Austria than to Venice
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