Friday 7 September 2012

Ortisei in the Italian Sud Tirol

Friday 17 August. We were on the return leg of our trip to the Italian Dolomites and made a stop at the town of Ortisei.

This was a beautiful Tyrolean town, full of painted murals on the sides of hotels, flower boxes and sunshine. We parked in a large coach and car park next to a cable car that headed off up a mountain.

We had to cross the river to walk into the town, which we did by means of a foot bridge. The huge spa in he background is the Cavallino Bianco, it prides itself on its facilities for children and in fact at certain times you cannot book into the hotel unless there are children in your party.

We have around three quarters of an hour free time here - sounds a lot but it's not that much really! There's lots to see and many cafes to tempt you. One with a loo would be quite good actually... ahem... excuse me...

And then, just drink in that scenery. Absolutely gorgeous! Leaving the mirror behind, we venture down the hill into the town itself.

There's not as much wood in evidence as there would be in the Austrian Tirol, but apart from that the style is very similar.

It has large wood carvings, all dried and cracked and gnarly (was he one of the seven dwarfs...? Or "dwarves" as Disney thought it should be...)

And this gorgeous and very quaint small clock tower made of blocks of wood and roofed with a steep slated roof a little like a steeple. There were too many people about to stand back and get a decent picture of it.

Fran optimistically buys a fridge magnet. I'm not sure there actually is any space on the fridge to put any more magnets. I reckon the weight of the fridge with all its decoration make it a good job we have solid floors on our ground floor... The 45 minutes is up. We return to stand by the coach, reluctant to board it until the last minute so that the air-con can cool it down a few hundred degrees to a level of merely sweltering...

A final photo from the coach as we cross over the river. I'm a Pisces... we just like water!

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