Trip

Well, here I am. Italy! Mum has gone to meet with her people from Sand in Taufers, which is why we're in Italy to begin with, so I have a whole day to squander to myself.
Sunny terrace, pretty square with pretty church and pretty fountain, espesso, San Pellegrino and some slow and unreliable wifi. It is as close to the best first day of a holiday I could imagine. The internet could be a bit faster, but what the hell. I have time to watch pages load slowly, I don't need to do anything else or go anywhere in particular.

Our trip here was slightly less perfect, though we got here in the end. We had plans to leave at 7 am, but due to our super slow sunday ending with us staying up late to make the house tidy in case people would come to view our house while we're away, we had given ourselves permission to sleep in a bit. We didn't end up leaving until 9.30, because we had a few hiccups. One of them was that when we wanted to put our destination into our TomTom (or DomDom as he has once again proven to be), he had decided that Italy no longer exists. He has been here before. He has given us, my Mum last september, and my hubby and myself two years ago on our honeymoon, directions to and in Italy. But for some bizarre reason, a recent update must have erased his memory. My iPhone, though it could find our hotel on Google Maps, could not give us directions to it. It was in cahoots with the DomDom, obviously. So I wanted to try Mum's phone, but it was not in her bag. It was not in the car. We went back inside, it was not where it most likely would be. It was nowhere. Only after a few frantic dashes through the house Mum found it on her nightstand, where she never, ever normally puts it, but did that morning. But it was back to good old paper road maps, anyways. Goin' old skool. All fine.

For most of the drive, it rained. It was wet, cold, wet and quite wet. And though we had DomDom guide us to the Brenner Pass, which is on the border of Austria and Italy, it showed nothing at all when we got to that border. Italy really does not exist, according to DomDom.  All roads and information stopped on the border, it was just a green background. Great. But, in Austria and through some Alps, the weather did improve a lot. Getting to Bolzano was not so much of a problem, though finding a way to our hotel and the parking garage took us a few laps dodging locals on bikes. Damn you, DomDom - it would have been so much easier being told where to go! But we got here around 20.30 last night, found out room to have a lovely view of Piazza Walther, and the temperature was a balmy 22 degrees.

After settling in and not managing to get the 'free wifi' to work, we went down and we enjoyed a lovely glass of wine (moscato!) on the lovely terrace (same one I'm sitting on now) which was served with a little plate with some banana and strawberry. This made us laugh. I hate bananas, and despite my total denial, I am allergic to strawberries. I ate the strawberries anyway. They were delicious. I have itchy bumps on my face today, but I am ignoring that fact. It was a very good end to quite a tiresome day.

Going to sleep was slightly tricky, despite my exhaustion, because the bed is very hard and the pillow very flat. It was kind of soothing to hear people having fun out on the square, the water flowing in the fountain and the church bell chime every 15 minutes. So eventually I did manage to go to sleep.

I did wake up extremely sore, my back and shoulders are very tight and I am definitely asking for another pillow. They have a wellness centre in the hotel with massages and steam rooms and a jacuzzi, which closed yesterday for their holidays and will reopen on the 5th of September. Go figure. Great idea to close a wellness centre during peak holiday time, so they can go on holidays. Oh well.
But I did managed to get the internet to work this morning, however, it has stopped working since I started writing this. They give you a little print-out with a password and username that is valid for an hour. It's been more an hour since I first logged in. I will have to ask for another password and username. Oh the Italians and their internet. Brings back memories of my honeymoon. Oh, wish my hubby was here.

Going to go ask for another wifi password, post this message and then go for a wander. Might have some lunch later.