6/24 -- Explore Trento, Transfer to Brixen

Today, we drove to the Dolomites, also known as South Tyrol. This part of Italy was controlled by the Holy Roman Empire, Austria, Bavaria, and Italy through Napolean and back to Austria. It became part of Italy once and for all after WWI. The people here were generally not  happy about this and even today, German is the first language for 70% of the population. This means I get to practice what I got good at in college and  have mostly forgotten! Along the way, we saw castles and more mountains.

This was our first siting of a Dolomite -very rocky and oddly
shaped by wind and maybe water.

On our way north from Verona, we stopped at Trento, also known as Trentino. Cities here have a German and an Italian name. Trento is linked to Neptune because of the river, and its Roman name was taken from  Neptune's trident: Tridentum.The Roman city was 15 feet below the current one, and some of the arches on the old churches are quite short because the main parts are buried. There were also a lot of buildings with frescos. The city was founded in the 4th century BCE and conquered by the Romans in the 1st century BCE.

Trento is also famous for the Council  of Trent, and attempt to re-unify the Catholic and Protestant churches. We had lunch in Trento after our walking tour and then headed  north again to Brixen.

Although the stone here is called marble, it is really lime-
stone quarried from near by and inages of ancient shells
are found in a lot of places on the street.

 

Side view of the Duomo with tents for a fair along side. It
was supposed to have two of the onion-topped towers, but
the second one was never built.

 

The current church is built over the oldest one. You can see
the original mosaics in the area below the altar.

This area shows a new floor abutting a much older one.

This model of the Duomo is labeled in Braille and designed
to help visually impaired visitors.

Our local guide, Laura, is showing us the original very
square layout of the city. Old buildings are shown in
detail and the more moderns ones are just flat-ish
placeholders.

This is a facist quote from Mussolini,
whose name was chipped off the end
after his demise.

 

Under this square, the old original Roman village was found
15 feet down.

This and the 2 photos below are a disjointed panorama
of the local fortress.

 

We are staying at the Elephant  Hotel, which was established in the 1400s. It gets its name from the part it played in a gift of an elephant to Archduke Maximillian of Austria from his uncle, the king of Portugal. The elephant was traveling from Barcelona and stopped here in 1551, but was unable to fit under the gate to the city, so it was stabled for two weeks across from the hotel. Of course, this was an amazing event for the people in the area and the hotel decided to capitalize on its notoriety. The hotel has a large garden across the street with a small swimming pool, tennis court, ping-pong table, and space to relax and enjoy a beverage. What it does not have is air conditioning (nor does any other hotel in the area) because weather like the current heat wave (mid to upper 90s through Friday) is a new phenomenon. There is a fan in the room and the thick walls provide some protection from the heat.

The balcony on the right is part of our room. Too bad it
is so horribly hot!

 

Davide took us for a walk around the village, which looks really sweet. We walked around the inner convent walls at the Duomo and then looked at the Baroque inside -- much more ornate than the other churches we have seen so far. Jim and I picked up some wine, juice, pretzels, and chocolate and called it dinner.

Above/Below: This is the entry the elephant could not get past.

 

 

The Rathaus or City Administrative Center

Burial wall at the Duoma

The frescos in the convent were still spectacular.

The short building is an older church on the
same site.