The Bilingual North

After enjoying Merano's city centre for a couple of hours and using the free WiFi we still had no clue where the slalom course was so we headed up into the hills overlooking the city and camped in a tiny spot next to a turn out lane, jammed between the road and an olive grove on a steep slope.

The morning after I pulled a random local off the street to show us where the course was, trying my best to use my Spanish to bridge the gaps in his English. First he took us to a random shingle-bed spot on the river on shallow water and when we told him it wasn't it he came in the car with us and directed us to the correct place. Second time lucky.

The course is in the city centre at the exit of an impressive, voluminous gorge. We got to camp there with access to facilities for five euro a night which was great given the location. Merano is quite a nice city, surrounded by hills and jagged peaks with a white water river flowing through the centre and a nice old town. We arrived in Merano on a Wednesday night and left the following Monday.

When I look back I did very little. I kick started this blog on a park bench by the river on the cities free WiFi. Studied a little Spanish. Went for walks to see the city and find nice places to relax. And simply chilled out. An impressive historic bridge crossed the steep river ravine just below where we were staying and I traversed this almost every day, heading up the long series of cobble-stoned steps and deviating back to reach the tower.

 The tower is maybe 30m high but feels much higher due to the steepness of the hill its situated on. One afternoon I came up here and simply sat for over two hours, gazing out over the landscape and listening to music. After quite a rough period back in Australia that I don't really care to talk about it felt great to be this content, simply sitting on my own, with no where to be and no obligations or perceived obligations. Merano allowed me to really wind down and by the time we left I felt more relaxed and driven at the same time than I had in a long time.

The city seems to have almost as many Germans as Italians and the vast majority of signs give place names and information in both languages. German language signage is far more common than English. German influence is particularly evident in the supermarkets where the smell of matured permeates the whole place.

We were living very cheaply here, paying for nothing but food, an ice cream a day and camping but it definitely isn't a city for the budget traveler. It reeks of what I can best describe as class. Audi's, BMW's and the like dominate the streets. The old town's alleyways are dotted with boutiques and gourmet delicatessens, selling products that seem to far exceed average prices back home.

Dan enjoying the effects of pre-drinking

However, none of that mattered. Merano was one city where we got everything right, living on very little and enjoying the best of what the city had to offer. We headed out to a club about 20km on a Sunday night which was absolutely pumping for some reason. At first we thought it was a dancing club because the place was filled with couples dancing Salsa to Spanish music but as the night progressed it changed to club music. We quickly lost one of the Scots that came out with us and later found out he decided to walk home, finding a bike and getting in at 6am in the morning. We got a ride home with a random Hungarian who told us about how he's selling BMW and buying a new car next time he's back in Hungary because it doesn't perform well enough when you get it over 2000- 2500 revs. 

He spoke quite the impressive range of languages; Hungarian, notoriously one of the hardest languages in the world, as his first language and German, English and Italian to a fluent level. His English was perfect. This however is quite modest compared to Marte, who I met in Slovenia's language repertoire; his native language is Slovenian and he speaks English, Serbo-Croatian, Slovak, Spanish and Italian fluently as well as having several others, for example Russian, that he is "only competent" in. Being in Europe has given me greater inspiration to drive forward my own language goals but has also made me realise how much easier it is on this continent or in any big city for that matter.

On the Monday night we made our way to Val di Mello, unfortunately being hindered by a closed past, recently cleared but still shut for the Gyro d'Italia, the Tour de France of Italy so to speak. We were told after the recent clearing the road goes through sections with 3m high walls of snow on each side and signs indicated some forty-eight switch backs. We were disappointed to have to deviate through Switzerland to say the least. We turned around at a small, picturesque town just as the sun was setting.