Sunday. Castelrotto to Bolzano

Every Sunday morning the local Castelrottens go to church in traditional outfits - wool jackets with embroidery, wool caps with a feather, dirndle skirts. We got to see this guy making the early rounds, but missed everyone going to 10 o’clock mass because we were just below waiting for the 10:00 bus to Bolzano. The church bell started clanging at 9:45 and continued non-stop until 10! We did see several women arrive by bus wearing the dirndl skirt and wool jackets and then head up to church. Oh, we took the bus to Bolzano instead of riding. Even though it’s all down hill, there is not a dedicated safe bike lane all the way. It seemed treacherous to share the narrow, winding road with a sharp drop with big fat buses. We arrived late morning to Bolzano, checked in early and spent the afternoon at the Messner Mountain Museum. Reinhard Messner of mountaineering fame. He is from this area, South Tyrol, and he was the first to scale Mt. Everest solo (no sherpa) and more amazing, without oxygen. He lives in a castle and has converted several castles in Tyrolia to museums inspired by and dedicated to everything “mountain”. Walking up and down throughout the castle was like walking up and down mountains. The museum has exhibits on local mountain history…politics, mountain culture, art, spiritural…not just to the Dolomite region but mountains of the world. The castle was converted to gardens and galleries. Having spent so much time in the Himalayas, he had Buddhist statues and art throughout. One tower room was dedicated to the climbers that lost their lives to the mountains….walls filled with their portraits while Bob Dylan sang, “blowin’ in the wind’. It was easy to spend hours here and it was like hiking the mountains. Extra shows a view of part of castle tower..built into a mountain..from another castle tower..with mountains in background. Note the elk statue.