Merano & Bolzano

I went back to Austria via Bolzano, changing trains at Merano. I’d never been to this part of Italy before.

Not all the Alps is scenic. Often if there’s a flat bit, they’ll stick some industry on it.

When my train from Mals arrived at Merano, I felt like I was properly in Italy at last. This is your classic Italian station cafe. Grumpy old man dispensing espresso, lottery tickets and cigarettes. Shop fitted out in 1955 with marble floor and built in cabinets. Mysterious cupboard of extremely expensive booze. Horrible toilet accessed through labyrinthine corridor where you have to give a coin to an equally grumpy old lady. There were also posters about how Kafka went on holiday there.

The centre of Bolzano also feels much more Italian, although the language split is 50-50 here. I spoke to the landlady of the guesthouse in German, but the ticket office of the museum in Italian.

I liked these covered shopping arcades a lot. There was also an excellent German language bookshop, that was better than you’d often find in Austria. My guesthouse had the rare luxury of a kitchenette, so I took full advantage of the huge pasta aisle of Italian supermarkets and cooked some gnocchi with walnut sauce.

Do the Moomins secretly live in Bolzano?

The Italian Umarell in his natural habitat, supervising. Place would collapse without him.

My train to Austria stopped for ages at the Brenner Pass between the two countries, apparently one of Europe’s premiere smuggling spots, but I got there in the end.