Good Friday
April 6, 2012

The fog envelops the valley, as it has yesterday and the day before. Yesterday it rained all day, a soft, windless rain. Sizzo told me the farmers needed it, as it had been dry and crops are just starting to sprout. The "Apfelweg" --the Apple Way-- near the Kueglerhof is lined with young saplings sprouting pale pink flowers under which the fruit will grow.

When the fog comes in it lies there until a rise in the temperature burns it off. Seeing it I am reminded of my upcoming walk in the Pyrenees and remember the young man who lost the path and perished in April 2007, having become separated from his walking partners. Seeing the fog blanket the valley and even the terraces of the Kueglerhof, I can understand how this can happen.

I am sorry to leave the Kueglerhof and Tirolo di Merano. I spent two days visiting the Museum of Tyrolean History as a guest of Sizzo's. It is a beautifully designed educational institution: headsets in Italian, German and English are available at the touch of a button to provide further information besides the already detailed information about the objects on view. The history of the Tyrol begins with the prehistoric period, continues to the period when Tyrol became a fief of the Wittelsbach family, through to the period of Hapsburg reign. From 1200 through the middle of the sixteenth century the Tyrol was at the heart of a conflict between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Emperor and the sovereign lords of Tyrol, eager to preserve their lands from Papal interference in matters great and small. This sometimes took the form of conflict over the sovereign's personal lives as when Margaret, the only surviving child of the last Wittelsbach Count, separated her (probably impotent, probably abusive) husband by literally barring the door to his return. At the time bishops of the Church were political players and had armed forces to assist them in their temporal endeavors, as in the case of Margaret's separation from her husband and unconsecrated remarriage. The Bishop of Chur, in Switzerland, keen to enforce the Pope's ban on the marriage travelled to Schloss Tirol, accompanied by a retinue of soldiers on horseback. Unfortunately for the Bishop, he was easliy taken by Margaret's own band and was imprisoned until he became more malleable with regard to the Margaret's marriage. It was she who turned over the Tyrol to a Hapsburg cousin, marking the end of Tyrolean autonomy and the beginning of Hapsburg domination. Next year, 2013, will mark the 650th anniversary of the event. "We will have to commemorate it somehow," Sizzo tells me.

Shortly I go to Mustair via the 11:14 a.m. train to Mals, where I pick up a bus to take me to Mustair and the Benedictine convent of San Gian in the Engadine region of Swtizerland. It being Good Friday, today is a fast day, and not too soon: I have enjoyed wonderful meals at the Kueglerhof. I have also taken on the burden of a few extra magazines and books given to me by Sizzo and Mary. Thankfully, if I can get myself to Mustair, and then Zurich, Monday, I can unload my excess baggage at the apartment of a friend there.