Meran

Day 8 Italy road trip
We slept quite well in the tent at the campsite in Klausen/Chiesa, even though it was under the entrance to the Brenner Tunnel. It was one of those campsites full of vans and caravans, who are just staying one night before the tunnel back to Austria/Germany. After breakfast, we packed up, then headed East toward Meran. It turned out really quite hot in the Vinschgau valley, ca25 deg. Couldn’t believe how busy it was in Meran, such a touristy place, but also very pretty. Totally full of flowers, cafes, salami shops, German tourists and bicycle tourists. After Meran, managed to find a campsite with space further east along The Valley. The whole of the valley was filled with apple trees, and I mean thousands. Apparently around 900,000 metric tons of apples are harvested every year in the Südtirol region of Italy. We got stopped on the way by the Caribineri Finanzi who wanted to see our documents, but we didn’t understand the Italian. We asked if they would speak German, but then they waved us on. A very weird experience, no idea what they were looking for. I googled them, and I think they are an economic police force, looking for illegal workers in the region. There were many gangs of Romanians, Czech‘s and former Yugoslavians there to pick apples.
The campsite was really nice, and we went for a walk and dinner at the village Latsch (Laces).