Not just… Christmas markets

This year too, my friend Roberta and I decided to go shopping—so to speak—at the Christmas markets. Last year we had gone to Trento, while this year we put together a quite respectable itinerary in the Bolzano area. A friend of ours and fellow train traveler, Michela, joined us, along with a friend of Roberta's: Cristina. Michela and I decide to leave Friday morning and stop to visit Verona before continuing on and arriving in the late afternoon in Bressanone, the place we chose as the base for our itinerary, while Roberta and Cristina would join us in the evening.

After a more or less normal train journey, we arrive in Verona in the late morning, a provincial capital at the foot of the Lessini Mountains. We leave our backpacks at the luggage storage and head straight to the center. We walk along the central Corso Porta Nuova, where at the beginning the aforementioned Porta Nuova is clearly visible, to reach Piazza Bra, with its bars and shops, where the Arena di Verona rises in all its majesty, still used today for theatrical performances and operas. The square is a constant bustle of people and tourists; we're out of season, but there are still quite a lot of people around with cameras. We head straight to the Arena, where after paying the entrance ticket (€4), we immediately begin our visit from the center of the arena. The Arena, symbol of the city, was built in the 1st century BC and was originally outside the city walls.

It presents its wide tiers in concentric circles, supported by a triple ring of galleries. We take a reconnaissance tour through the various galleries, where in the outermost or lowest one, the traces of the various theatrical performances are evident. From the highest tier you can enjoy a panoramic view of the city. There are few people in the arena, a school group and a few individuals, so we enjoy our visit in complete peace. After finishing the visit to the Arena, we continue to Piazza delle Erbe with its picturesque little market. After a quick sandwich at a bar on a side street off Piazza delle Erbe, we resume our visit in search of the legendary balcony of Juliet and Romeo. You can't come to Verona and ignore the place where this tragic story supposedly took place. So we too arrive in front of the gate of the Capulet house... a disappointment...

I had already seen it and I remembered this place well, but when I had come there wasn't this eyesore of little notes stuck to the wall with chewing gum... in plain words, "a mess!" I don't know whose brilliant idea this was, which is supposed to celebrate love, but personally I don't like it at all... this myriad of little notes stuck to the wall... bleah... After a quick glance at the balcony and the statue placed in the small courtyard, we leave, disgusted... it's not possible to damage a building like this!!!

We wander around the city a bit more and then set off for the station to continue our journey. We have to be in Bressanone before 8:00 p.m., the closing time of the reception at the hostel where we'll be staying, to pick up the room key. As we reach the station we pass a pastry shop, with so many delicacies in the window calling us so insistently, and since the sandwich we ate for lunch wasn't great (the photo was so beautiful but the result was a bit too simplified), we decide to go in and make up for it with a nice little dessert.

Once at the station, we pick up our luggage from the storage (€3.70, a bit of a rip-off as prices go) and resume our journey toward Bressanone, where we arrive after the sun has already set. We have a map that we consult to find the shortest route to the hostel, located behind the Piazza del Duomo—the square where the Christmas market is set up, so much so that we pass through it on our way to the hostel. Let's say they couldn't have chosen a better solution. Right in the center of town, or at least near the things that are of interest and meet our needs, given that we don't have a car and have to get around on foot.

After doing the necessary check-in, we pick up our keys and go up to the room. The hostel is very nice, all tidy, very clean, like new. It's very quiet; there are other people, but either it's well soundproofed or the people are well distributed across the floors, because we don't hear any noise coming from the nearby rooms. Our room is on the third floor; you can get there by stairs or elevator. It's a quadruple room with a private bathroom. It's very nice, with a small entrance and two adjoining rooms that are very spacious. And the bathroom is also very large and has two big windows. The bed linens—4 soft duvets—were included in the price, while the bath linens were not. So each of us brought what we needed from home.

We get settled, and rather sneakily Michela and I choose our beds; that will mean that in case of protests we'll assert our right of seniority and of having arrived first.. heh heh... After freshening up a bit, we go looking for a pizzeria for dinner. We take a table for 4 and wait for Roberta and Cristina to arrive. The train is obviously a bit late, but we would have been surprised otherwise! After the pizza we treat ourselves to a nice dessert, some strudel and some Sacher. After that we return to the room. The streets of the town are not very crowded, and the temperatures certainly aren't pleasant.

Hostel: €27 per night - Youth Hostel - Via Bruno 2 - 39042 Bressanone - Tel. +39 0472 279 999 - E-Mail: bressanone@ostello.bz -

We got up.. we have to go catch the 9 o'clock train that will take us to Vipiteno. The first village and the market we decided to visit. For breakfast there's loads of stuff, milk, tea, coffee, cereals, yogurt, jams, honey, Nutella, butter, cold cuts, cheeses.. in short... there's enough food for a week. The breakfast room is very large but practically empty, only a few tables are occupied. After this hearty breakfast and having bundled up well against the cold, we head out toward the Station: the first market awaits us. At the ticket office we're sold a ticket (€5.00) that's a bit unusual; they explain that we have to stamp it in a special stamping machine where, before putting the ticket through, we have to enter the destination code. A sort of special kilometre-based ticket, it looks like a debit card.. you can't even really tell where it says how much it's worth.

We're a bit doubtful but we take our little cards to stamp and go wait for the train on the platform. Once we arrive in Vipiteno, the station certainly can't be said to be in the town centre, it's not far but it's not in the centre either. We, like many others who got off the train, head toward the town centre which is a real chaos of people. Vipiteno, thanks to its favourable position, since three valleys converge there, has always lived on commerce. Via Città Nuova and via Città Vecchia are very charming, the latter located right in the heart of the city. Just to add a bit of culture... eh eh he... it should be said that Vipiteno was destroyed by a fire in 1443.

It's Saturday and there are lots of people wandering around these markets, maybe too many, including yours truly, so we can't complain about the crowd. We take a look at the shop windows along the main street. It's one continuous succession of houses with brightly coloured façades with the ever-present Erker (projecting bay windows), and shops with wrought-iron signs. And then... we finally reach the wooden stalls of the market. In itself, the market isn't huge, but the setting in which it's placed, this pedestrian street full of shops, and the small square that opens up roughly halfway along the street make it nice and characteristic. Some people claim that once you've seen one market you've seen them all...

sure, the things on sale are the same, but the villages are lovely, the setting they're placed in and perhaps this strange Christmas atmosphere that, even though it's November, makes Christmas feel very close. There are stalls with wooden trinkets, figurines and items for the nativity scene, Christmas baubles in various shapes, colours and prices (and what prices!!! To decorate a medium-sized tree you'd have to take out a mortgage!), local crafts, sweets, vin brulé and various delicacies: sweet and savoury. So much so that I bought a bag of dried apple slices covered in chocolate for my husband who stayed at home. After a stroll among the stalls all together and having listened for a while to a choir singing Christmas songs, since Roberta and Cristina are more used to shopping and Michela and I instead want to go poking around the town, we split up agreeing to meet for lunch.

So while they set off shopping along the town streets, we wander around the town. We choose even less crowded, less touristy streets just to see the surroundings a bit. In fact we choose a street that takes us out of the town, and not wanting to retrace it backwards to return to the centre we have to make a long detour. But Roberta and Cristina are busy shopping and don't notice our lateness too much. In the early afternoon we return to Bressanone and wander a bit through the city streets and among the stalls of the market in Piazza del Duomo. The stalls, these little wooden huts, all identical, are all arranged quite symmetrically in the square in front of the cathedral. They're a celebration of colours, lights and cheerfulness. There are lots of people around and getting close to certain stalls is a titanic undertaking, and on top of that it's starting to get very cold too.

Bressanone has always been the symbolic city of the temporal power of the prince-bishops; palaces, churches even today bear witness to this passage. The Bishop's Palace was, in fact, the residence of the lords of Bressanone.

For dinner we choose a restaurant that serves typical dishes, just to taste the canederli, which we saw while strolling in the afternoon. They bring us two super balls immersed in a very tasty sauce. Of course dessert concludes our little dinner. After dinner we go for a walk to burn off all these delicacies, canederli aren't exactly light and tonight a little walk is just what we need. The city is nice, even if at night you practically don't meet anyone around. We wander a bit through the centre, cross the river and go down a very characteristic narrow street, cross the river again and continue on a pedestrian street that runs alongside the river, a sort of cycle path where we meet only one person walking their dog.

It's not very well lit as a street, in some stretches it really feels like a street from a mystery film complete with a maniac popping out from around the corner! Walking and walking, we start to get suspicious about the direction this street is taking, especially because we didn't remember having walked all that way the first time we crossed the river... We look around, and orient ourselves by choosing the direction to take by observing the position of the bell tower of the Duomo dell'Assunta that rises above the houses. Our hostel is right behind it. So after all that walking we find the way home and arrive at the hostel. Roberta, she was the one who really wanted to walk, is more than satisfied... having taken the wrong street made us do a super long walk, but tomorrow we're the ones choosing the direction!

Dinner: Ristorante FINK - Via Portici Minori 4 - €12.00

It's Sunday and given the time at our disposal we decide to go and see Brunico too; initially we had decided not to go, but since we're very quick at visiting markets we make a detour here too. So after breakfast we head to the station again to catch the train. We buy the tickets (€6.25) and the woman at the ticket office very kindly tries to find us the cheapest option, between a normal ticket and these strange card formulas they palmed off on us yesterday. At a certain point, after some calculations, she asks us if we had any leftover cards. She must surely have read the amazement on our faces but we immediately search all our pockets and three pop out, but the lady tells us that two are enough. Huh...

Sometimes keeping everything has its merits! Then, since the stamping business gets a bit complicated, the lady kindly comes out of her office and helps us stamp these strange tickets; today instead of having one each we have one that works for all four of us plus the two leftovers from yesterday. We thus deduced that they're cards with an amount, every time you make a trip this amount decreases, and you can even recover the leftover change on old cards. A clever system that lets you save compared to a normal round-trip ticket, too bad that the only information leaflet we find is written in German. Brunico isn't bad as a town. It's the main town of the Val Pusteria. It was founded in 1251 when the bishop of Bressanone made it his summer residence.

Both at the market and in the shops there's a lot of chaos and crowds too. It's Sunday and you can tell: there are many groups on coach trips and unfortunately they also move around in groups among the stalls.. if you end up, unluckily, in the middle of one of these, you get swept away by the current! We do our usual reconnaissance loop among the market stalls, then we leave Cristina and Roberta to their shopping and Michela and I go wandering a bit around the town. Brunico looks like a fortress town dominated by its 13th-century castle with the town streets at its feet. The castle can't be visited, the guides say only the courtyard is visitable, but we found everything closed. We take the opportunity to stroll along these little paths that lead from the town to the castle.

We take a few photos of the town, pass by a small church and return to the centre where the others are waiting for us. Brunico too, like the other towns seen so far, presents itself with its Via Centrale, lined with Gothic buildings with Erker and crenellated roofs. Again today the temperatures are polar so while waiting to go to the station we hole up in a super crowded bar to get something hot. Among the markets and the villages we've seen, perhaps this is the one I liked least... as a market, logistically speaking it's more spread out. At the station we decide to buy the tickets for the return home for the following day. It seemed like an easy operation but it became rather long. At first we're a bit taken aback because the cost of the ticket is much lower than the outward journey but then.. the woman notices the mistake and the ticket cost goes back to normal...

it seemed too good to have all that discount. Back in Bressanone we do a quick round of the market to finish our purchases and then we visit the Duomo dell'Assunta with its 2 slender bell towers that recall the religious buildings of 18th-century Bavaria or Austria. Between the cathedral and the nearby chapel of San Giovanni Battista, from the Roman era, a Gothic cloister is thought to have existed. It must be said that we struggle to find the door that leads us to the Cloister, but then... searching and searching we reach the cloister.

For the record, the guide says that this is where the council convened by Henry IV in the 11th century was held to elect the antipope Clement III; I wasn't there so I can't refute this truth!!!! Bressanone is nice as a town, its little streets in the centre, the shops, the architecture of the buildings, the atmosphere you breathe make it a pleasant little town. Its streets are characteristic and the traditional coloured façades of the houses with the now well-known Erkel are ever-present. The market is nice too, of those seen so far it's the largest, it's placed in the square in front of the church and as soon as the sun sets the Christmas lights colour the square. For dinner we return to the restaurant from the night before to try another speciality.. they give us the same table as the night before.. but on the dessert front tonight they're more lacking.

Maybe it's because it's Sunday night and they don't expect a big crowd but the choice is more limited than the night before.

Dinner: Ristorante FINK - Via Portici Minori 4 - €12.20

Up early because today we also have to pack our bags before catching the train to Bolzano. So after breakfast we run to the room to put all our stuff in order and try to fit our purchases into the bags. As far as I'm concerned I have to pack well the painted glass bauble for the Christmas tree that my colleague commissioned from me, I certainly don't want to hand it to her shattered. The day isn't nice, it's drizzling and cold, on the mountains, a dusting of white tells us that it snowed during the night. We say goodbye to Bressanone and by train we reach Bolzano. The city, located on the Brenner road. Since the Middle Ages, the Brenner pass has been the main route of communication between Italy and Germany and even today, the signs of this long history as a commercial centre and meeting and clashing point between two different cultures are evident.

Bolzano became Italian only after the First World War (1918). The city is a swarm of people moving about, kids going to school, people going to work. It's Monday... the city comes alive with its usual hustle and bustle It's still early for the market (p.zza Walther) which will only open at 10. So we dedicate ourselves to visiting the city. Arriving from the station avenue we thus reach Piazza del Duomo. We then move to Piazza delle Erbe with the Neptune fountain until we walk along the beautiful Via dei Portici, with the beautiful Gothic houses with brightly coloured façades and the ever-present Erker (projecting bay windows). To finally arrive in Piazza Walther, dominated, besides by the many stalls, by the statue of the greatest medieval German poet, a certain Walther von der Vogelweide or something like that because frankly I really don't know who he is.

We skip going to the Museo Archeologico dell'Alto Adige where "Otzi" is kept: the Similaun man who lived around 3500-3300 BC, found among the glaciers of the Val Senales and Austria, because anyway today is Monday and it's the weekly closing day. We stroll through the streets, take a few photos, even though the weather isn't nice and the light isn't great. In the end the market comes alive with people and colours. We wander a bit and then as always we split up. Michela and I are already a bit fed up with all these Christmas things. So we decide to go for a wander in search of a pastry shop to buy some little sweets to take home. I also find a shop that sells infusions, teas and types of coffee. I really like infusions and wandering around the shop smelling all those aromas and flavours is very pleasant for my nose.

I would have liked to buy some but I waited so long for the shop assistant to pay attention to me that I probably even grew cobwebs... In the end.. since she kept paying attention to everyone except yours truly, I left, worse for her... one sale less! Unfortunately it starts to rain, we decide to go and visit the interior of the Duomo dell'Assunta with a bell tower that's a good 65 metres tall. There's an organist rehearsing. It's even pleasant to stand and listen, so much so that we sit on the benches at the back of the main nave. We're interrupted by Roberta and Cristina who are looking for us (the power of mobile phones!), because they're freezing and want to go get something hot. We go to a small bar where we also take the opportunity to eat something, since it's lunchtime.

Before going to the station, we stop to pick up something for dinner, which we'll have on the train, and some little sweets to take home, which so far we've only eyed but not yet bought. Michela gets the strudel while I, since, modesty aside, I make it well, decide to bring Marco the Lynz tart. So we return to the station, retrieve our luggage and resume our train journey, which wouldn't be that long if the railways hadn't worked so hard to make it so. So much so that once we arrive in Turin we miss the connection to go home and have to wait for the next train. It was a nice trip, the markets were the excuse to visit these areas and to enjoy, in advance, the Christmas atmosphere. The company was excellent.. as they say.. 'too bad it's over'!