October 2014, During Autumn holidays we went on 10 day trip to South Tyrol. As we started looking for holiday homes just a month back, not much options were available. We wanted to stay in the guest house provided by Farmers where kids get a chance to be with animals. We booked “Gasserhof” in Terenten, as the surroundings looked scenic.

Distance to be covered was somewhere around 780km and with detouring because of traffic few more kms got  added up. Initial estimate of duration for driving was 8.5hrs. As we started pretty early in the morning, we had hoped to cover the distance well and reach by 3pm. But due to heavy traffic and several short breaks, we reached Italien border around 7pm. After going through narrow hillside roads, navigation took us to a place with no lights in the surroundings and said, “you have reached your destination”. This was Harish’s first experience of such a long drive. He did not want to give me car as I was on fruit diet. We called up the Guest house owner and she asked to drive further from the place where we landed for about 2kms. She directed that once we see a church, we should turn left. We were happy that we would be able to find some light apart from our car headlight. But she mentioned, “Its a village church with no lights, so you would see that in your car light only”.

At last we reached the church after passing through many curves on narrow roads. And we could see a house lit with lights in all rooms and a lady standing, speaking to us over phone. She asked, now turn left and we saw only grass. We asked, do we need to drive on grass?… no no… drive little further and you would see a mud road. We found the mud road and reached our holiday home. You can imagine the kind of questions I was posed by other 3 in the car all through this time. “Where have you booked? Did not you get any better place? Still how far?” My only answer was, “Give me the car, I will  drive. I am also coming here for the first time, all I know is what internet said” hahahaha.

We got into our Guest house, which was warm and cozy. In a single room they had a double bed and a bunker bed. Room had a balcony. A small kitchen + hall. As we were tired, ate something which we had packed and slept. Next day morning when we got up, it was foggy and we could see 1-2 houses nearby. Around 8am, cows started going out in a line jingling their bells…as we relished our coffee seeing them pass by. It was one of the Beautiful day of our lives. The village had 4-5 houses and animal sheds, surrounded by mountains. It was more scenic than what we had expected seeing the pictures.

 

After having Breakfast, we wanted to get milk and fresh bread from super market. So when we started driving to nearest supermarket, we realized that the road was so steep and narrow, if we would have seen earlier during day time, would not have dared to drive at night.

We did not want to have a holiday with hectic sightseeing programs. Rather wanted to have a relaxing holiday. So, till evening we explored surrounding areas by walk. At evening, we started walking up a road without aim. It was expected that kids would complain and make drama not wanting to walk. Road was proper, but very very steep. We reached a place where we could have a panoramic view of the valley where our holiday home was located and the surrounding mountains. Coming down was easier, but it was getting colder with chill winds.

Lake Braies (Pragser Wildsee):

Lake Braies was our first sightseeing trip in this area. After parking the car, we had to walk few hundred meters to reach the lake. Lake was so beautiful with reflection of surrounding mountains and trees. We started walking further to make a round to the lake. After reaching 75% distance, at one side there were only steps going up to get across and we had to struggle to carry our little one who was 2.5 years and her buggy. We did not want to turn back as we had already covered longer distance and kids did not have energy to walk again. At the end, there was a small restaurant and a small area with ponies.

We reached back home around 5pm and at 6pm kids had plans to visit the cow shed and help. Kids enjoyed touching and feeding cows. Swasti also tried to extract milk from the cow. It was a whole new experience for them and they were not ready to come back till our Guest house owner finished her work in the cowshed and locked. We got fresh milk to use.

Passiertal and St. Martin:

Drive on the mountain pass to Passiertal on a foggy curvy road was a memorable experience during this trip. 

 

St. Maddalena: This was one of the places which I had noted down to visit as I saw nice pictures showing the surroundings. We had to drive around 2 hrs and the drive was really scenic. After walking in the city of St.Maddalena, we drove towards Zanser alm and just started hiking up without aim. On the way we had potato crème soup at Zanser alm restaurant and walked in the surroundings for a while before driving back to our holiday home.

Lago de Dobbiaco: This was another lake that we visited near Terenten. Reflection of surroundings were so clear in the water, it was very beautiful. Here too we spent a short while walking along the lake.

Astener Bergalm:

From the city of Terenten, there was a short hiking path to waterfall, name of which is not known. I knew that to reach the waterfall, we had to hike a distance which was impossible within the time we had. In fact we decided go on this hike late in the evening. As we started walking along the steep road with our little one in the buggy, we got exhausted sooner than we expected. And as we went further, steepness increased and Swasti was like “Mom, sometimes I really feel like hitting you so hard”. Harish did not say anything, but his silence was sufficient to know how he was feeling. As usual, still how far? I used to say “few hundred meters”…that few can be in tens or hundreds. And we met few people who were coming down and they encouraged saying, “you have covered a distance already, Alm is not too far”. At last when we reached the Alm, it was closed. I had to show a small streem coming out of mountain and say, “this is the waterfall I wanted to take you to” and had to hear “For that you made us walk this much? we could have shown you this in our Guest house Cow shed only”.

But the moment we started walking down, the expressions of both of them changed in a second. They seemed so energetic and happy, as there was breeze of fresh air and all exhaustion was kind of relieved. Swasti started praising me “Mom, you are the best mom in the world”  and I was thinking “Are these the same people who were angry on me just a second back”. All along the path, there was a small stream flowing and it was nice to stop by and sprinkle ice cold water on our tired faces.Many evenings, we went near the church which was located around 200 meters from our guest house, as there was a play ground with swings.

One day I decided to climb up the grass next to the church. Both Swasti and I climbed up while Harish and Sohum were near the swings. After climbing on the top, saw that the view was very very beautiful and we made other to come over there. The panoramic view and the breeze was so amazing.

Sun used to lit a small area of the surrounding areas like lighting up using a torch and it used to be very beautiful. We used to walk and walk seeing cows and goats grazing till we get tired.

While coming back kids cried not willing to leave the Cows and we had to promise that we would come back to the same Holiday home next time for which time has not come yet.