over the summer

it was quiet here over the summer while i was busy with the move of golegrand.de on blogger, or with life offline. those who track us on the iCloud shared album or by checking the photo page are already in the picture, for the rest here comes a recap of the last months.

the guns n' roses played in munich mid of june and we were there too – the olympic park was crowded by far much more folks than the merano population counts! slash ran the show while axl rose showcased a line of clothing.

at the turning of june/july we spent some days in hamburg. fun time back with friends, as well as a 50th birthday on 7-1-17. for the rest however it was... too rainy. too cold. too noisy. too crowded. too rat race style. a scratchy throat got me after two days – something not seen since our move to merano. and there were no mountain around… so at the end, we've been more than happy to get in back home.

summer in south tyrol is made of days and days of sun and heat. one day you may prefer to enjoy the hot temperatures in the valley, the other one you can choose to escape to higher-located areas for cooling down and inhale the fresh mountain air. but watch out! summer is also the most humid season – thunderstorms with strong winds and heavy rain occur frequently, mostly in the late afternoon, and nearly as regular as clockwork. most of them come and go quickly within one or two hours, but some can be more devastating – while merano has been spared, other areas like the upper val pusteria and val senales have seen homesteads, trails and roads been blocked or destroyed by mudslides.

needless to say that our free time was filled by many outdoor activities. first we had in mind to go exploring the dolomites and to make a bike tour to lake garda. at the end, however, we had no chance to go and look somewhere else – there's still so many spots to discover on the mountains surrounding, being a new track on a slope already known, another valley, or one more mountaintop, that the spaces of monte san vigilio (the mountain directly facing our living room), texel group nature park or cervina mountain filled our outdoor time this summer, turning each hiking and biking excursion to a live nature's cinema. 

some highlights:

hiking on top of monte san vigilio to the alpin farm malga naturno (1922 m) and back (16,5 km); or to colle scabro (2020 m), then back downhill to san pancrazio (15 km).

going up the cliff trails of velloi to hochmuth and the alpin farm leiteralm.

in alta val passiria, two sensational tours that killed us: first one from platt to zeppichl (1684 m), staying overnight at the lovely zeppichl inn, back home on the next day on a strenuous and spectacular 18 km tour across the mountains via passo sopranes (spronser joch 2581 m), the lakes of sopranes and hochmuth. second one again from zeppichl, this time for a hike to the mountain hut refugio petrarca (aka stettiner hütte) up to 2875 m and back (20 km).

and i'm still on italian language, more than ever since the events called me back to working life. already had my first italian payday. tutto bene.

one last thing for today: if you read this, please be so kind and drop me a message. thx a million.