Lazise: little medieval town on the south-east shores of Garda Lake - it had acquired special municipal rights since 993 CE thanks to a privilege issued by the emperor Otto II.
Family-gathering near Bolzano.
View from Noafer toward Sciliar (above) and Weisshorn/Scharzhorn (below)
Hiking from Jenesien (about 1100 m asl) toward Lafenn (1500 m asl). These horses are of typical local breed: Haflinger
Alpine meadows with dandelions and larches
Beyond Lafenn, near Moelten
This was tough: the path almost gone, I had to clear shrubs and thorns.
I wonder why I hadn't considered to take the lift.
Glycine at the entrance of a very old building on the slope towards Rafenstein.
Among the old buildings of Bolzano this tower is still in perfect shape. There is no sure date when it was erected, but some scholar points at the period around 1280 CE assuming it was erected by count Meinhard II. In the picture below you see a very old rural house and there is no way to trace its origins. It's very near to the tower and maybe it's as old as the tower (or even older).
Update 2007 April 26: this is a picture from yesterday, with better lighting than the other ones; the tower is more than 23 m high, the outer diameter is almost 9 m, the wall is 2.30 m thick.
LAV - LegaAntiVisezione campaigning against vivisection
There are steep slopes very near to the city center towards east, north and west. Tiny hamlets, little old churches, manors and ruins can be seen right from the city center.
In the Isarco Valley there is at the foot of the Sciliar (picture above) a tiny hamlet, St. Oswald. Here you'll find in an old barn a little museum on rural life in older times (see pictures below).
+ click on image to enlarge! +
This week more blossoms came out in Bolzano, at least a fortnight earlier than the last year: see a corresponding forsythia picture from 2006 march 27 in http://vitaalpina.blogspot.com/2006/04/revolution.html.
This picture by Mateus (riservaXixuaù-Xiparinà, Amazonia/Brasil) was sent to me just today.
