Alta Badia Travel and Tourism

Getting from Trento to Badia takes 4.5 hours vis 2 trains and 2 buses. Overall not so bad! Learning that hours vaguely don’t matter as trains and buses will randomly be late or early but they come every 30-60mins ( or less ) so you never wait that long.

The deal here was staying at this cycling hotel where I shared a room with Dar. Breakfast buffet at 7am and 4 course meal at 7pm with salad buffet. The prepared meals were usually top notch.

Cost-wise however you’re basically spending 400-500$ more per week for the food vs Airbnb. I wouldn’t do a whole vacation of this, as fun as it was.

Dar at the train station

The hotel. Big destination for cycling and run by a family and a guy who used to be on the national mountain bike team

Room was pretty small. Just good for sleeping and shower but that's all you need.

Me at diner table. Lots of people most evenings, took 2 hours to eat. That's a little much.

My sweet sweet salad bar, how I miss you.

Each day we'd get 2 starters, a main and a dessert. All high quality home cooked

Typically South Tyrol cuisine ( like these Canederli ) but it was different every night we were there

Desserts were also on point. Tiramisu was the best thing.

Morning was the breakfast buffet with the awesome coffee machine that made me about 15 cappuccinos. We'd take cookies and pastries as ride food

One night this band just showed up in the street and did a lap before playing a couple songs before diner

Diner and a show, can't beat that.

Karsten and Dar. I will miss this place, it was fun! Met a few bike ppl while there as well. Highlight of the trip for sure.

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Ladin Museum

The day we did only 3 hours ride because of rain forecast we decided to drive around and visit a few things outside of town. This small museum within a castle is about 15 minutes from Badia.

The Ladins are a group who lived in the mountains around the Dolomites. They consider themselves a distinct group than Italians and they have their own language that you will see on most road signs in the region.
They’re more Bavarian/ German than Italian.

This little museum will teach you about the history of these people and of the Dolomites in general. Something to do.

Section about the earliest known settlement in the Dolomites. Tiny village up on a defensive hill

The museum is weird and sort of dated. Rooms have animated displays/videos that just run on a loop so you're never at the start of their presentations and have no idea what they're talking about

Big section about the "Devil's Hooves" clam fossils that people collected and/or thought were evidence of the devil. People are very religious in Italy.

The traditional attire/costume of the Ladin people.

Intricate Ladin jewerly

There's a section about how their economy in the 19th century was centered around making lots of these creepy wooden dolls and toys

The whole family was put to work sweatshop style to make these and export them across Europe as toys for rich kids while people here struggled

Just lots of different rooms mainly featuring daily living situation for 18th-19th century people, before the tourism and fancy cheese made them rich

You can climb up the top of the castle and get some decent views of the valley.

They somehow managed to sneak in a guilt trip expo in the basement as well. Please stop. Just stop.

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Messner Mountain Museum ( Brunico )

“Reinhold Andreas Messner (German: [ˈʁaɪnhɔlt ˈmɛsnɐ]; born 17 September 1944) is an Italian climber, explorer, and author from the German-speaking province of South Tyrol. He made the first solo ascent of Mount Everest and, along with Peter Habeler, the first ascent of Everest without supplementary oxygen. He was the first person to climb all 14 eight-thousanders, doing so without supplementary oxygen. Messner was the first to cross Antarctica and Greenland with neither snowmobiles nor dog sleds[1] and also crossed the Gobi Desert alone.[2] He is widely considered to be the greatest mountaineer of all time.[3][4][5]”

He used his money to buy some castles which he turned into Museums! This is one of them, about 30-40 minute drive from Badia.

The castle is quite large and most of it is filled up with artifacts and art from cultures across the globe

Lots of mountain related paintings

Lots of odd things relating to Tibetan culture

View of Brunico from the top of the castle

The castle itself.

The basement has a section on tents / camps. You can check out the inside of them.

Yurt still smelled like yak! Pretty interesting display in general

African part with lots of nightmare fuel sculptures

Japanese stuff. I think.

Most of the castle is small sections dedicated to one tribe or specific people from a mountainous region

Headhunter? Sounds badass. From a tribe near Nepal

Example of display with clothes, furniture and artifacts giving a glimpse into the traditional lifestyle of the people

Not the cleanest/most professional diplays but the sheer volume and uniqueness of the contents make this one of the coolest museums I've visited in Italy

Each one has some information. I am guessing Messner visited all these tribes/places as he was doing his his mountaineering

There's dozens of these displays, the visit will take you several hours. It's a great museum

Antique surgery kit with all the tools still in their place.

Not sure what went on here

The rooms meant for nobles are always lavishly decorated while the rest of these castles is just bare stone and wood. Weird contrast.

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Verona

Didn’t want to go right from Badia to Bergamo in one day so I booked a room in Verona for a night. Also last chance to hang with Dar before he left! My Airbnb was pretty sketchy so that part sucked but we got to visit Verona in the morning and I have no regrets!

Pretty cool Egyptian statue at the Verona train station

Best feature of Verona is this ancient roman arena which is better preserved than the one in Rome

It's not as large but not as crowded. Really worth a detour

You can walk all around and go inside the entrails of it to see how complex the Romans built this

They're still using the arena today to put on shows! 2000 years and still in service

View of the inside from the top seats. It's actually huge especially when you first walk into it

I am not sure what this thing is near the Arena but isn't it cool?

Verona looks just like every other south Italian city. They really must have stringent laws in place to keep all these cities looking old and run down

"Arco dei Gavi" arch they rebuilt/moved and used to be part of the castle wall/fortification

Of course lots of graffiti by dipshits

Castelvecchio, huge fortress on the edge of the Adige river. Has a museum inside but we didn't have time

Castle Vecchio bridge. You can walk across it, well worth the little detour

"Basilica di San Zeno Maggiore" one of the only things open on a Monday

Lots of biblical decorations on the entrance walls

This thing is massive, hard to convey the feel of this place from pictures. These churches and cathedrals are so over the top

Centuries of different art styles adorn the walls

Everything just meticulously crafted and decorated, like Jesus wanted

I think that's the body of Saint Zeno in there ( I didn't read anything or listen to the audioguide )

Face for scale

Now that I've been to Milan I realize this church actually looks like garbage by Italian standards. That's pretty crazy

The two heavily decorated bronze doors this church is known for.

Best thing: 2GoodtoGo order at the train station. 10 euro for what would be 50+ at restaurants. Same quality. Sometimes you win.

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So ends the magical week in the Dolomites! It was awesome to travel with Dar for a little bit, welcome change from being alone all the time. It’s just that planning all this stuff is time consuming already, I’m tired from cycling and most people simply can’t ever travel much of the time so the odds of every lining anything up with anyone are slim to none.

Glad Dar asked me to come! Next up: riding near/around Bergamo. What even is that? Where is it? What is there? Who knows!

All the links to the Italian Trip:

More Travel

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