Day 10- Castle and Monastery

The title is written as it is because there was one of each in today’s travels. Today was the shortest of our journeys, just 154kms from Madonna Di Campiglio to Bolzano. Jonas leaded today and we made our first stop for coffee at shop in Stenico. We sat on the sidewalk and conversation turned to other Edelweiss tours. Robyn mentioned that she had seen they had one called Castle and Breweries tour. Jonas responded to explain that that took in a chunk of Eastern Europe. Robyn replied I am not interested in the breweries much but I would like to see the Castles. Jonas then points up the hill across the road and says “There is one there.” So we made a impromptu decision to visit. The walk up the hill was good excerise and the view of the castle was interesting. We walked through the court yard but from there you had to pay and we did not really have the time or the inclination to do so on this visit. The morning had started off with a shower forcing us into our wets at a brief roadside stop for that purpose. But, by our second stop, a photo opportunity at Lake Movieno, it had dried and it was warm and, while it still looked a bit threatening, we shed our wets, willing to take risk. It proved worth in and we did not see any rain again until dinner that night.

Today we had our second picnic lunch in a gorge that hide the sanctuary of San Romedio. Lunch was a spread laid out by Axel, and after enjoying it, we made another walk up hill to the monastery. Romedius, its first inhabitant was the son of a rich Bavarian Family in the first millenium who went on a pilgrimage to Rome and never return but became a hermit here. The legend is that he had a horse which he was riding into Trento when he was attacked by a Bear who killed and ate his horse. Romedius seeing his predicament alone and travelling without a horse, a dangerous thing it this time, convinced the Bear that he should carry him to his destination. When he arrived in Trento riding a Bear, people were amazed and he attained the status of Sainthood. The first chapel was built on his grave around the year 1000 and four more and several other building have been added. The last chapel opened in 1923. Romedius is the patron saint of pilgrims and hikers and there are as many as 200,000 who visit every year. The walls have pictures and photos of many, not sure of their stories, but I guess that people come to pray to Romedius for them in their travels or something. The story was much better when Jonas told it with an Italian accent with much hand waving. The other cool thing is that they have a real live Bear they rescued from some illegal east European trade. He was unable to be released into the Wild so he is he upholding the legend.

Our last stop was a cuppa at the top of Mandelpass. We had icecream before heading off into another twisty section down to the warm basin and the busy city of Bolzano (Bozen). Our adventure for the day was not quite over. Coming out of the fuel stop, Hamish and Angus became separated from the group. We had to wait on the side of the road while Jonas went back to look for them. He did not find them. Angus who had been here before and with the help of google maps made their way back to the hotel ahead of us. By the time Jonas came back we were very hot and sweaty in our bike gear and happy to be out the hotel.