Europe 2017 & 2019 & now 2023: But we paid for it

As indicated yesterday we moved out of Germany ending up in Andriano an Italian commune 10kms north of Bolzano.

To get here we crossed through Austria but we paid for it as to use their motorways you need to purchase a vignette which we did near the Lech falls that we saw yesterday. For the pleasure of using their roads for approximately an hour it cost €9.90 which would have been the same cost had we used them for 10 days.

Our mid morning stop was at Zugspitzblick which is a cafe in the Alps and gives a panoramic view of the Zugspitz and the emerald green Blindsee below.

The Zugspitz at 2962m above sea level is the highest peak in the Wetterstein Mountains and also in Germany

I have upload a video of the view here.

It was a great view but we paid for it! Anyone who knows Sherry knows that she usually drinks just hot water instead of coffee so we ordered a cup of hot water which we paid the princely sum of €4.90 (approximately $NZ8.75) for.

It wasn’t long before we came to our first tollgate, tolls are charged on almost all Italian motorways, and we got ourselves into one of the many lanes. As we inched forward there must have been some issue at the tollgate so we had to manoeuvre ourselves “politely” out of that lane into another.

The trip through to Bolzano was relatively uneventful but we did drive through some majestic scenery - high hills on either side dotted with villages. One thing that did stand out was the fact that we drove downhill continuously for at least 25kms or it seemed like that as it went on and on and …by the time I realised we were always going downhill we drove another 10kms before we got to the valley floor.

Parked in a carpark in Bolzano as there was an hour to kill before we could book in. The old area of Bolzano challenged our senses a little as it seemed rather chaotic but hopefully won’t seem like that when we explore it properly.

Drove very cautiously out of Bolzano to Andriano as the GPS was having difficulty giving us precise directions, so cautiously I pissed off an Italian driver behind me. Just as we entered the motorway I slowed to ensure there was no traffic coming from my left and he gave an almighty blast on the horn so much so that I thought I hadn’t seen a vehicle coming down the motorway so I gave the brakes a very solid jab and as I looked in the rear view mirror I saw the nose of his car disappear below the rear windscreen- on this occasion he nearly paid for it!!!

Our accommodation is in a nice apartment in a large apple orchard, an orchard that appears to have numerous varieties of apples.