Italian Charm

I am having weird holidays in Wipptal, which is the valley between Innsbruck and Italy, best known for the Brenner highway. Every morning I wake up to the sight of hundreds of trucks delivering something from Italy to Austria and a noticeably smaller number of them going the opposite direction. The high bridges that make up the highway must be a technological wonder, but I still hope that one day all that will be replaced by a nice long tunnel (under development, by the way).

The problem is, I came here to do winter hiking – which, according to its website, Wipptal is really great for – and am having troubles finding snow. The global warming (which is now being appropriately and safer rebranded as “climate change”) resulted in below-zero temperatures at night, covering parts of hiking paths with highly annoying, not to mention dangerous, ice, while failing to deliver anything on the snow front. As a result, I have to take valley buses (of which there are blissfully quite a few) to their final “valley end” stops and walk back as long as there is something to make crunchy sounds under my feet. The other problem is that Wipptal, on its Austrian side at least, is not a famous touristic region. Visiting it at an off-peak time (before skiing holidays), I found my hotel nearly empty, and the only visitors around apparently coming for business reasons to assist small industrial enterprises the valley is full of.

Therefore, I took a train to Brenner (Brennero) and then another one to Sterzing (Vipiteno) on the South Tyrolean side to do some tobogganing (at the Italy’s longest track), walking in the snow, and having good food and coffee. What a difference! Vipiteno (I don’t dare calling it by its German name), though size-wise comparable to Steinach (my base in Austria), has a charm of an Italian holiday village, while Steinach is depressingly industrial. Sterzingerhaus, located relatively close to Rosskopf’s (local mountain) top cable car station, serves both a traditional South Tyrolean Marende (with three ingredients) and a “Gemischter Aufschnitt” platter, which is a nod towards Austrian Brettljause. As much as I respect Marende, the choice was easy to me.

The platter was certainly tasty, though I would not have minded more Italy-ness in it. Something looking like a Mortadella and pickled paprika were certainly welcome, but otherwise the Speck, the ham and (especially) the cheese did not strike me as anything special. I appreciated the butter, however, which was served unwrapped, and even more the Schuttelbrot, which I have really missed since my last foray into South Tyrol.

Vipiteno is full of restaurants serving Brettljause-like dishes, and even though I liked Sterzingerhaus’s offering, I am sure there are better ones around. Sterzingerhaus has the advantage of offering a really nice panoramic view, on the other hand, but I dare say it would be better in summer without idiot skiers’ passing by every half a minute and making the walk back to the cable car slightly risky.