Monday, April 2, 2012
Southbound

There is a strain of German Romanticism that exalts the south of Europe, its luscious warmth and easier ways. Winckelmann, the influential nineteenth century dramatist, died under mysterious circumstances in a lodge in [Switzerland] , on his way south, in what might have been a homosexual tryst gone wrong. Baron von Gloeden went to Sicily to photograph adolescent boys in indolent poses, in imitation of Classical Greek statues. German painters went south to study Italian techniques, incorporating them into their work. Landscape and memory entwine to create a particular painting style with national characteristics nevertheless: The melancholy paintings of Caspar David Friedrich could only have been painted by a German, or a Dane: the coolness of the colors mirrors the landscape the painter sees, which is not like a southern landscape at all.

And I am going south, away from the bone-numbing cold, toward Tirolo di Merano, in the German-speaking north of Italy. Once part of the Holy Roman Empire and therefore under Hapsburg control, it became Italian after the First World War broke up the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A resort town, popular with Empress Sissi (a hotel in Merano is named after her) and other European royalty in the nineteenth century, it lives off those glory days, attracting German tourists who come to walk the trails and drink the local wines, whose grapes can be seen ripening by the footpaths.

What Merano too has is mountains, the Italian Tyrolean Alps (or Dolomites in Italian), not so high as the Austrian or the Swiss, but climb enough for the more adventurous. Forty years ago I climbed "Der Mut" ("Courage Mountain"), a mountain in the area and wrote my name in the visitors' book. I am visiting for none of these reasons: I am going to Merano to visit The South Tyrolean Museum of History at Schloss Brunnenburg, and the South Tyrolean Museum of History at Schloss Tirol --as well as its director, Dr. Siegfried de Rachewiltz.

But first I have to get there, and it will take all day and most of the evening.

***

From The Train Window

Near Kitzingen, Bavaria the land starts to slope, and the churches have onion domes. These are Roman Catholic churches in Germany's largest state. "If they could be a separate country, they would be", is the widely-held belief about Bavaria, also Germany's southernmost state. The conventional image of Germans --affable, beer-drinking, jovial-- is a Bavarian stereotype. Prussians are haughty, Mecklenburgers stand-offish at first, Pomeranians arrogant --there is a stereotype for every state in Germany, but so many Bavarians emigrated after the failure of the independence movements of 1848, Bavarians stood in for the rest of Germany, their stereotyped image becoming the German stereotype.

The weather outside is warmer, the sun is shining and the train, an ICE --the Deutsche Bahn"s highest quality trains-- is moving along swiftly, quietly. Munich and my connection for Bozen --the German name for Italy's Bolzano, in the South Tyrol-- is ninety minutes away.

Bolzano is known for being where Otzi --the prehistoric man found perfectly preserved in the snow, on the border between Italy and Austria-- was discovered. Found in the snow by two Austrian hikers, one half of his body in Austria, the other half in Italy, Otzi became a cause celebre, as Italy and Austria each vied to claim the body. After several international court proceedings, Italy was finally awarded rights to the corpse. A journalist presiding over a panel about Otzi I happened to attend some years ago, declared that on the day Otzi went home to Bolzano, Otzi's procession into the city might have been the final obsequies for Garibaldi, so large were the crowds, so great the outpouring of feeling. A museum designed completely around Otzi has been built in Bolzano.

North of Bolzano is Trento, where the Council of Trent, an ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church, met in the middle of the sixteenth century to consider the threat posed by the Reformation. I was there in July of 1972, making my way to Brunnenburg, but all I remember of the visit is that when I arrived, the local youth hostel was full up. The kindly manager could only offer sleep on the terrazzo floor in his office, which accommodation was greatly accepted, although my back protested in the morning.

We have just passed Nuremberg, the medieval town where the Nazi War Crimes Tribunal decided the fate of the surviving members of Hitler's staff. Hermann Goring was perhaps the biggest fish tried at Nuremberg, although he avoided hanging by swallowing a cyanide pill, probably slipped to him by a sympathetic guard. We will never know.

It is time to get ready to depart the train with my too-many bags. My left ankle has swollen, a consequence of helping Edda put some shrubs in on the property at Gross Siemen. I will have to give it a rest if I am going to be able to walk from Saint Jean Pied-de-Port, France to Refuge d'Orisson in the Pyrenees on April 14, weather permitting.

I have been very lucky with my Eurail pass: throughout East Germany no one stamped my pass, which means I will have extra days left to travel. Assuming I can walk to Refuge d'Orisson, I can spend the night there, then come back down, rather than going on to Roncesvalles and Pamplona, as originally planned. I can go south for a few days, to Marseille, which I have always wanted to see since I read that Julia Child lived there after the Second World War, when she and her husband, Paul Child, worked for the State Department.

I could go south, use up a credit I have on the TGV to go to Paris, and travel back to the French border and head for Spain when I am through. With access to my cousin's apartment in Esteiro, I can leave my excess baggage there, travel to Sarria and walk the 100 kilometers to Santiago, in order to earn the Compostelle of the true pilgrim. A roundabout route, but with six weeks free once I reach the Pyrenees, it might be a good plan, allowing me a break in the sunshine, but not impeding the pilgrimage from Sarria --with me in much better trim for it, too.

***

We reach Munich in short order, passing Ingolstadt, famous for its university, and Dachau, infamous for its concentration camp. The train station is well laid out, and I easily move from my track of arrival, twenty-four, to the train to Bolzano, on track thirteen. Just as I approach, the train pulls in, with the first class car being the first behind the engine. The cleaning crew jumps off, and I board, finding my seat easily and settling in with thirty minutes to spare. I have time to have a quick lunch outside on the platform, where I can watch my things but enjoy the fresh air before the train pulls out.

I take a look at sign for the train next to the door of the car, and with a flash of excitement see that it will make stops in Kufstein, Innsbruck, Brenner, Bolzano, and Verona. So I am to go back to Austria briefly, and through the Brenner Pass, which separates Austria from Italy. I am eager for the ride to start, to see the Austrian Tyrol, glad to be further along towards Merano. I have a reservation through to Merano, so even though it is Easter week and students and families are on vacation, I am in good stead. Outside my window I glimpse six girls, waiting for their train, all looking remarkably alike - tall, thick scarves wrapped over their casual jackets, jeans, hair in a ponytail or wrapped into a casual bun, pale skinned, fresh-scrubbed: classic northern European madchen.

The interior of the car is getting busy: Families are boarding the train, parents with large suitcases and knapsacks in tow, youngsters bringing up the rear. Across from me I recognize a family of three - mother, father and teenaged son-- who were also on the train to Munich. I cannot recognize the language the are speaking, "Are the from Slovenia, which borders Austria to the East?" I think. Later I realize, because they leave the train in Merano, and address locals there familiarly, that the mysterious language they are speaking is the South Tyrolean dialect, but which one I cannot discern --there is a German, an Italian and a Ladin variety . The father is keeping score as they play a game of dice, the dice pieces rattling on the seat tray with each throw, over and over again. Outside there is brilliant sunshine, and not a cloud in the sky.

**

We arrive in Innsbruck at five-forty p.m. The housing built for the Olympic Village for the last Innsbruck Winter Olympics can be seen from the outskirts of the town, nestled against the side of the mountain. Innsbruck has had successful Olympics, the town's cachet continuing to attract international tourists.

We are headed next to the Brenner Pass.

***

We reach Brenner (Brennero in Italian), and are now in Italy, red white and green flags flying alongside the European Union flag, twenty-seven gold stars in a circle on a field of navy blue. The train changes engines, and we enter the tunnel. Just before we enter, huge tractor trailers can be seen, their drivers outside smoking cigarettes, waiting to be waved into the tunnel to pass into Italy beyond the Pass.

It takes less than ten minutes to make it through the Pass: on the other side, the mountains rise behind, looking spectacular in the fading sun. The tunnel area is not industrialized: in fact, the train passes a farmer, dressed in navy blue work clothes, pushing a red wheelbarrow filled with wood within inches of the train. Chalets grouped together dominate the view: at the village of Colle Isidro a terra cotta onion dome graces a yellow church tower. Modernity has been married to tradition here, with benefits for each, it seems.

I will arrive in Bolzano at 7:29 p.m., but the train to Merano is more than 90 minutes later, at 9:04 p.m. I am hoping that there is a train at 8:04 p.m. that I can catch --it would be good to get to Merano early, rather than wait around the Bolzano station. Perhaps an excess of caution led my Deutsche Bahn ticket broker in Frankfurt to put me on the 9:04 p.m. train.

***

Indeed, there is a train an hour earlier, and I get a taxi to the Kuglerhof, up the mountain. Its slogan, "the panoramic lodge" is well-chosen: the view from my room to the valley below, is breathtaking, all of the valley spread out from my terrace. I have entered the world of fashion again: the slender, authoritative man who comes to greet me is very soigne: cherry red shoes of fine cut in distressed leather, matching pants, Lacoste polo, blue blazer, salt and pepper hair worn longish, pushed back over his ears.

The room is minimalist --just a white coverlet on a bed made with a white sheet, all the wood a bleached pine to match the floors, the upholstered chair and drapes a coordinating darker taupe color. High quality baskets function as receptacles, Two apples left in a wooden receptacle made of fine oak are a welcome gift, and the toiletries are similarly organic. All I want is a bath and sleep, and I am glad to have nothing to do for three days here.