Thursday
September 25, 2008 – Mountain Drive
We checked
out of the Hotel Riviera this morning with promises to return and a fond
farewell from Gianni. We were headed for
Cortina and the snow line. The route we had chosen, (Map Here) with Gianni’s help had us
moving pretty well up the autostrada
heading to the Brenner Pass and Austria and then getting on to the Via Gardena
(S242) said by Gianni to be the most picturesque mountain road in Europe.
But…..before
we could set off, I had my blood test to do. The doctor in Melbourne had recommended that I had the test
because of the potential effect on my INR from the antibiotic I was still
taking. There was an ospedale in
Gargnano which operated from 8 in the morning until 12 noon daily. Gianni had
established that they could do the test, but that they required a doctor’s
order. He obtained this from his own doctor for me.
I duly
reported at the hospital, climbing the long staircase up from our level which
probably dealt with a few of the calories I had absorbed during another
wonderful breakfast on the hotel veranda. Have I mentioned the brioche with
lemon cream already? If not, it was one of the best things I have ever eaten;
warm from the baker over the road, light as a humming bird’s wing and filled
with this delicious sweet/sour limone – just wonderful.
 |
| Last breakfast at Gargnano |
Leaving the
party to their second and third helpings, I headed uphill, as I say. Naturally
no one spoke Inglese there, so I produced the note I had written in anticipation
of this event. In English it said:
“I need a blood test. I have heart disease and I take the
medication Coumadin / Warfarin. The test is called, INR in English
(International Normalized Ratio). I'm taking antibiotic drugs for my infected
throat that can affect the test INR. Can you tell me where is a centre of
pathology?”
Babelfish had rendered it into
Italian as:
Ho bisogno di un'analisi del sangue. Ho malattia di cuore e prendo il farmaco
Coumadin/del Warfarin. La prova è denominata, nell'INR inglese (rapporto
normalizzato internazionale). Sto prendendo le droghe antibiotiche per la mia
gola infettata che può interessare la prova dell'INR. Potete dirmi dove un centro di patologia è?
They had a bit of a laugh but nodded
their understanding and after filling in numerous forms and they
gave me a test tube for the blood and a note in English – possibly translated
by Babelfish saying I had to go to the Post Office to pay a fee of Є6.85. I had
not noticed a post office in the village as we walked around, but established
with broken language and gestures where it was and set off back down the long
flight of steps. I bumped into the rest of the party who were stocking up with
rolls, meat and cheese for lunch. I duly found the post office and paid my fee
plus Є1.00 tax to a rather bored clerk and then dashed back to the hospital
with my receipt. The nurses gave me a warm reception and introduced me to a
young intern from Mali
who took my blood sample very well. They told me the result would be available
at 14.00 and gave me a number to call.
 |
| Corvara |
All done then…. so I got the car out
of the garage where we had parked overnight and headed down to the hotel to
pick up the troops and we were finally on our way. We got onto the motorway and
maintained a good speed until we were just outside Bolzano where there was some congestion from
road works and heavy industrial traffic. It soon cleared and we were off on the
road to Cortina. It certainly was spectacular from the word go with outstanding
views. It was quite strange to see the change in architecture with the houses
changing from the Italian style stone houses to the more Bavarian style wooden
designs. The countryside was magnificent – steep and green – and when we
stopped for our lunch break beside a little stream in Corvara we could see the
mountains topped with snow. What a place for a meal – beats any restaurant in
my book.
We had already been up some steep
and winding roads but after lunch both the bends and the steepness increased.
It was an amazing ride altogether made more so as we met several large tourist
coaches along the way.
How those drivers manage the hairpin bends is amazing.
We had two close encounters with these monsters. One of these had us coming
into a downhill left hand blind bend to find a coach on our side of the road!
There was no other traffic so we were able to slip past on the wrong side of
the road. Again we wondered what it would be like driving here in the height of
the tourist season – or in winter!
 |
| The picture does not really do justice to the twists and turns we encountered |
 |
| The views were magnificent |
We got closer and closer to the snow
and then, as we topped one of the passes there were small flakes on the
windscreen. Snow is always an exciting event for us, given our background of
living in warm climates all our lives – I first saw snow when I was nineteen or
twenty. It was melting as it hit the ground, but still it was snow.
There were so many lovely sights, it
is difficult to recall them all, although the small chapel on a hillside was
one of my best memories. Miles from anywhere that we could see, we wondered who
built it, when and where did the congregation come from?
There was a slight shower of rain as
we arrived in Cortina and we had to laugh because TomTom brought us into the
town in a most peculiar way. We were persuaded to turn off onto what started as
a reasonable road, but one that deteriorated into a narrow lane and ended up as
a virtual goat track past farmhouses – and almost through them – before leading
us back to the road we had been on. Taking the ‘straight line’ approach Tom had
cut off a large bend, but added about
five minutes to the trip. I don’t know why he has this aberration from
time to time but it can be disconcerting as we squeeze through alleys and
archways designed for donkeys.
Although we knew that Cortina was
essentially a winter resort, we were surprised to find that it was virtually a
ghost town. Hardly any traffic or anyone in the streets. We finally found a bar
that was open – the ladies were busting – public toilets being as scarce as
hens teeth in Italy.
We had a cup of coffee and then were on
our way again. I especially wanted to push on to somewhere that would be within
a couple of hours drive of Loreggia as we were due there at noon to have a last
meal with the Bastarolo family. The rain got heaver as we left the area and by
the time we were getting into Belluna (via another tortuous TomTom route – we
were clearly slow learners) it was raining pretty steadily.
Having made it to the piazza in the
centre of the town, we asked a policeman there (who tried to move us along
rather vocally) where the nearest hotel was – he pointed to one a block away,
which we had just driven past, no doubt
mentally shaking his head at the stupidity of these darned tourists. Rab
and Sue went in to inspect and negotiate a price. It turned out that there were
only two rooms left – one at Є102 and the other a suite at Є120. Rab said we’d
take them, although Sue wasn’t too happy as their budget was Є80 and she felt
we shouldn’t take the first offer. I don’t often put my foot down, but I did
then because I sure as heck didn’t want to start driving around the wet dark
town – and, as I pointed out, Gargnano had been well under budget. Mike brought her around to our way of thinking
before too long.
The room price included parking in
the back yard of the hotel but by the time we got the car there ( a remarkable
feat in itself!) most of the space was taken up by a gang of motor cyclists.
The only space available was a small one
between an Audi and a Mercedes Benz 350 SLC. Going in I misjudged the turn and
clipped the front bumper of the Mercedes with my right rear. I hope it looked
worse than it was, because we pretended that it never happened.
It turned out to be a good decision
– to take the room, not to scrape the Mercedes – because it turned out that
there were very few hotels in town and none near where we had parked. The young
lady on duty spoke quite good English and was good enough to call the hospital
in Gargnano to get my INR number, which was OK. She also gave us directions to
a local restaurant where we had a reasonable, but not good, meal. Rab had veal
which seemed more like beef: I had pork which had been badly butchered so I
kept getting splinters of bone. We shared a dish of spinach and carrots which
had been cooked to RSL club standards i.e. overdone to almost a pulp. You can’t
win them all – we have had mostly excellent meals until now.
No comments:
Post a Comment