Today we took the bus instead

After four days of wonderful hiking weather, nature had compassion for me and my battered body today. The sun was gone, only clouds full of rain were visible, which fell heavily, so there was no chance of a new tour for the time being. (puhhh)

Instead, we tested the free bus connections for paying guests extensively to travel to Bolzano...

At first glance, it is evident that the villages of St. Ulrich, St. Christina, and Wolkenstein are doing very well economically. This is seen in the well-maintained green areas adorned with modern art, the stately houses, the gilded guardrails (no joke), the people, and the cars they drive. However, space, that is, room, is limited because alongside the residents, there are also the numerous tourists who pour all the money into the coffers. Hence, they had the good idea to calm all traffic and to establish a free bus service throughout the valley and beyond, which everyone uses extensively. Even we have only been using the bus since the second day here, although there were some initial difficulties due to the not-so-intuitive layout of the bus lines. After missing the last bus to my accommodation on the second day because I had boarded the wrong bus and then had to struggle up the 600 meters in altitude, I took photos of all the timetables and reorganized them so that we can now always travel easily by bus to every valley station and back home. A small but important step towards optimizing the use of the Gardena cards. Speaking of optimization: From my observation, the bus drivers are exclusively real Italians who also embody every cliché of driving a vehicle (here a bus). I could imagine that H.J. Stuck would also have to hold on a bit more strongly to the driving style of these colleagues in the mountains. I, for one, hold on tightly with both hands and both feet on the ground so that a collision does not take me by surprise, which will only be a matter of time. When I was sitting at the front of the bus and had an unobstructed view of the mountain slope, I briefly lost control of my voice in the midst of a risky driving maneuver. A loud 'oh God' escaped my lips, which was responded to with a sudden brake by the driver, who, after the fully loaded bus came to a halt, wildly gestured at me and then at the steering wheel in Italian and made motions to unbuckle himself. I interpreted this as him asking me to drive the bus down the mountain myself and was just about to take over when the traveling companion pressed me back into my seat and said I should just be quiet. Somehow the last five minutes passed as well, but the matter was not over yet. When I got off, I noticed that the display at the front of the bus was not correct and told my traveling companion that it was a good thing I knew the timetable by heart, otherwise, we wouldn’t have gotten on the bus. The traveling companion then positioned herself in front of the bus and pointed to the sign. The driver, with an extremely short fuse, waved his arms again and wanted the traveling companion to move aside. But once the traveling companion has bitten down, she doesn't let go. So the driver really unbuckled himself this time and left the bus to check the sign, but forgot to pull the handbrake, causing the vehicle to slowly start moving backward. Instead of jumping back in the bus, the driver quickly opened a hatch and pressed the emergency stop, causing the bus to come to a sudden halt. (the second time within 5 minutes) The anger of the passengers must have been terrible, but we had already gotten to safety and watched as the driver tried to get the bus running again after the emergency stop. How long that took, we do not know, as we quickly made our escape into the bus to Bolzano.