Bolzano, Italy

Leaving Lake Garda for Bolzano. Great views!

We made a stop to Trento along the way. This is about an hour's drive from Riva del Garda.

It was a small university town among the Dolomites clusters.

So cute...this vintage motorbike. About the right size for me! It's like the Italian version of those 'ah pek' bicycles in Singapore that are used to make deliveries to kopi tiams. Premium bananas anyone?

Hotel Four Points by Sheraton in Bolzano...yay!!

It was a long and ardous drive, which involved us getting very very lost in ulu Italy. I have ambivalent feelings towards GPS technology now. While it is usually quite reliable and convenient, it makes us leave our brains behind, give up good old maps and put our faith in this little black box, enslaved to its commands to "turn right" or "enter roundabout and then take 4th exit". Everytime it went "Recalculating", it put us in a frenzy to recitfy our mistake and made us upset that we have again, taken the wrong road. 

We don't know if the  route it chooses for us are what we would prefer. When we make a wrong turn, we don't know if the new route is going to be much much longer than the previous one. We don't even know that the Italian transport authorities have been so hard at work that they built new expressways while we downloaded the maps, which made our maps obsolete already. We are absolutely in the dark with this piece of wretch technology! 

Once, I was so incensed when during the drive, the VOICE insisted I was driving on "unpaved roads". I was on a spanking new autostrade but the GPS went mad and pronounced "recalculating" so many numerous times I almost lost it. When we finally spotted someone, I was elated! It's a.... HUMAN.... at long last!!!

When we reached the hotel, I just sprawled on the soft sheets to recover from the ordeal. But my 

driving woes weren't over. Here's some advice: if you're in Italy and see the autostrade road sign, always do a double-check before turning in. We happily paid the tolls thinking we were going to town. It turned out to be a 60km mistake to and fro. Add peak hour traffic, huge trucks, road works and double toll payment to that. I almost died.

An Old English Sheepdog. These are one of the cutest, blur-looking dogs around. One of the things I love about Europe is the fact that pets go where owners go. I might single-handedly boost the Singapore economy if Tiger were allowed to go shopping with me! haha!

Neptune is pretty popular in Europe. Frankfurt has a huge statue of him about ten times this size.

Hey look...I'm on TV!!! 

Ok, technically, I'm in TV. Ok ok, corny I know. This "TV" is actually a revamped speaker/ampifier in a quaint cafe.

Here's a 'man-eater'...The hubby is charmed with World Cup paraphernalia and decides these chips in the shape of soccer players clearly adds to the mood while catching Italy vs Uruguay.

That's all for now...next segment, Merano.