Our last stop in Italy was Bolzano in northern Italy, the capital city of the province of South Tyrol. Bolzano is considered a bridge between north and south due to the three languages spoken in South Tyrol - Italian, German and Austrian and also the confluence of the Italian and German-Austrian cultures. From the Middle Ages, the two main Alpine crossings, the via Claudia Augusta over Reschenpass and the Brenner route over Brenner Pass, have met in Bolzano. Thus, the city has always been very important for trade. Balzano is 1,616 m above sea level.
The side of the church is planted with a row of glorious flowering crepe myrtles. A pleasant antidote to the bullet holes that riddle this face of the building and their chilling reminder of WWII - the first of many.
The Brenner Pass through the Alps forms the border between Italy and Austria. It is one of the principal passes of the Eastern Alpine range and has the lowest altitude among Alpine passes - with an elevation of only 1,370 m.
A four-lane motorway and railway system connect Bolzano (Italy) in the south and Innsbruck (Austria) in the north.
The landscape of the Austrian Alps was amongst the most picturesque we have ever seen.
The scenery varied from rolling pasture land to steep pine forests that seemed to be wedged between high mountains.
From Innsbruck it wasn't far to the German border and our first stop on the Romantic Road, Fussen in southern Bavaria.
A view of Fussen and its lakes from the top of the chair lift ........
.... where people jump off the side of the mountain (there is nothing underneath the point where they are standing!) and glide to the bottom, trusting very much in their ability to judge the vagaries of the wind.
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