Tuckett to Merano

Yesterday was a perfect day. In the morning, my partner found a nice climb to do that for some reason we’d zapped in the guidebook. It was lovely. It was on the Castelletto di Mezzo and called via Sybilla. We only had a half day before it was supposed to get rainy (although it held off for longer than the day before). The climb was seven pitches and there were a few bolts in there so route finding was much, much easier and more pleasant. We were done climbing at 11h30 and rappelling down by 12h30.

After that we went back to where the car was parked, only stopping for cake and coffee in a refuge. I’d found a place to stay in a youth hostel in Merano, Italy, and we came here. And did laundry, which was becoming necessary.

Merano is gorgeous! They speak German and Italian here, and also apparently Laden (a Rhaeto-Romance language, much like dialect spoken in Graubunden in Switzerland.) We met a woman from here this morning. She was born here and was back to see friends, but either they didn’t have space for her or she wanted her independence, so she was at the youth hostel. We got the scoop on the town (although the conversation was in German and I didn’t catch all of it.) She said that they learn all three languages at school. We wondered whether people had a “South Tirol” identity, as it’s hard, from the outside, to know whether Tirol and South Tirol are geographical or cultural areas. She wasn’t able to answer, but said people felt attached to their particular town or village, with their particular dialect of Ladin, and their mix of maybe more German or maybe more Italian.

I spent the morning reading about Sissi, who came here for the thermal baths. I only knew her as the world’s most famous anorexic, but she seemed to not be entirely awful. I believe someone has recently made a movie about her. I do know that she was killed in Geneva, as I pass by the statue where it happened quite often. I learned about the sad story of her son, who was maybe crazy from syphilis, dying in what might have been a murder/suicide with his seventeen year old mistress.

My partner seems to have gotten stuck with some work obligations, but Im just hanging out Foro, catching up with the blog.