We woke up in Bolzano to a stunning (if cold) sunrise.
We grabbed a coffee and some pastries from the local cafe (pretty much a daily ritual by now) and walked to the centre of town to the Christmas markets.
The sun was just rising over the mountains when we found them.
I love a culture when you can calmly sit and drink a glass of wine at 10am and nobody blinks.
We decided ‘When in Bolzano…’ so we found an outdoor bar with a fire and ordered hot apple juice and brandy.
The girls had major fashion FOMO over these fur-lined hooded jackets that everyone seemed to wearing. We’d been into every H&M we’d come across but they never had their sizes. After discovering there was one in Bolzano we headed for it.
Success!
Audrey even found a toy store with a giant slide connecting the floors.
After an unsuccessful attempt to find a supermarket on foot, we went back to the apartment, grabbed the car and started following directions. Unfortunately through some combination of Google Maps, Mandi’s directions and my driving we ended up in the middle of the ABSOLUTELY PEDESTRIAN ONLY Christmas market we were just in.
Pretty soon the car was surrounded by people which made progress in any direction almost impossible. We inched our way forward with me yelling at the kids to be quiet so I could concentrate on not running over toddlers and causing an international incident. After a block of this, we saw a couple of police officers up ahead, blocking traffic (too bad they didn’t block us before we came into the Piazza) and looking perplexed. They didn’t speak English but with Google Translate and hand gestures we managed to explain our predicament and they offered to move their car to let us out.
We crawled two more blocks to the end of the pedestrian area and back to the normal road. I have never been more happy to see a street sign.
We had just passed the supermarket we were looking for so Mandi got out of the car, opening her door into a passing cyclist with her toddler in a baby seat. After a quick ‘vaffanculo’ from the rider Mandi finally made it to the supermarket.
The next day we decided to head to Merano. First stop was a cafe for a coffee and strudel (there’s a lot of Austrian influence in this region). Audrey decided to make the most of the sunlight for some quick meditation (that’s Paddington primary schools for you).
After refuelling we headed up into the mountains for our first taste of snow.
The kids’ only other experience of snow is in Thredbo, so heading up in the cable car was pretty amazing.
As was the view from the top.
We spent a few hours on our $5 Decathlon sleds enjoying the snow.
Then Mandi and I took a much-needed Aperol Spritz break.
The sun was setting so we headed back down the cable car.
We headed back into Merano to get some food at the markets.
It was great to get some different food after all the pizza and pasta of the past week.
Although the kids somehow managed us to convince us to let them have a giant sugar-glazed pretzel for dinner.
One ride on the carousel and it was time to head back to our apartment for the night.
