Italian Lunches

“The name of Italy has magic in its very syllables.”

Mary Shelley

Tuesday

Fine weather and Shell feels like lunch in Italy.

We can take in the Swiss Alps and almost all of Liechtenstein with a few detours.

Liechtenstein is 25 km in length, and a neatly matching 25,000 people live here. A constitutional monarchy, it took the lead from Switzerland and cheered the Second World War from the bleachers. Best to be a spectator when some 50 million people are about to get annihilated.

The country almost went broke until some imaginative tax breaks for corporations resulted in big investments. These days, Liechtenstein is one of the richest countries in the world per capita.

It has all the majestic landscapes of Austria and Switzerland, yet somehow manages to look like The Truman Show. Everything is perfect, every garden, every road sign. All is meticulous.

Austria left me breathless with its mountainous beauty. Switzerland, you are magnificent.

I have read in books the term ‘above the tree line’. I saw the naked peaks in Austria, but today I drove them. There is a literal line of trees at about 1800 m and then there are none.

Australia does not have great mountain ranges, despite calling it the great dividing range.

“People are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home, that wilderness is a necessity.”

John Muir

We both agreed that outside of Europe, the only landscape that compares is New Zealand. The same soaring beauty, just not quite on the same scale.

The pictures will not do it justice, despite our efforts.

Lunch in Südtirol, or as it is better known Alto Adige.

I am no historian, so I will summarise this as best I can. At the start of WWII, Italy, not for the first time, jumped on the wrong team. The records show that Hitler and Mussolini were two peas in a nationalist pod.

When Mussolini was overthrown 1943, the Italian army had been hard at work shoulder to shoulder with the Nazis for four years. With things looking grim, Italy changed sides. A year later the Italians were winners and the Austrians losers.

“Somewhere in the world there is a defeat for everyone. Some are destroyed by defeat, and some made small and mean by victory. Greatness lives in one who triumphs equally over defeat and victory.”

John Steinbeck

As is usual, the winners get the spoils. In this case, Italy, who had fought so hard, for so long, against the Allies, were rewarded for their late, sudden change of heart with Alto Adige.

Never mind that over 60% of the population speaks German, Italy just landed Austria’s most famous wine region for being a turncoat.

Sitting 2000 m above sea level, on a dirt road only accessible by foot or bicycle, which we drove up, is Rescher Alm. Overlooking Lago di Resia is the most stunning place for lunch.

A beer and an Aperol Spritz.

Shell ordered pasta al ragù di maiale and I went for the gemischte knödel. No surprise there are dishes from both Italy and Austria.

The food delicious, the view is superb.

We got lost a few times on the way home.

For some reason getting lost in the Austrian Alps is not really a problem.

“We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial—I believe we are lost.”

Erich Maria Remarque

Home.

Bed.