Tag 43 SCHLOSSHOF, SIFFIANO 17.09.2022

Today is the departure to South Tyrol. An incident happened during breakfast!? So we enter the dining room and 'our' table is occupied. There is a reservation sign with a different room number on the table? What's the matter? I check some neighboring tables for our room number but find nothing. Then the best wife of all (according to Kishon) gives the simple explanation that the signs are still from the previous evening's dinner. We didn't participate in that, so I take the reservation sign and turn it away. Let's have breakfast now, because we still have a long way to go. In accordance with the events, today Lake Maggiore is not peaceful and calm but the wind is blowing. The water is quite agitated and the greenish surface is interspersed with many small white foam crests. Now we don't want to be on a ferry! While observing the lake, a middle-aged couple enters the room and looks around and walks from table to table. Finally, they turn to the waiter, who confidently comes up to us and puts the twisted reservation sign back in the right place. She points to a table further away where our room number is noted. Oops, embarrassing, and then she exchanges the signs and the other couple has breakfast in the second row. Well, if we don't have dinner here one evening, we will be reprimanded!? Oh well, we check out and pay a lot of money again for food and drinks and of course a generous tip for the staff! And who knows if the cleaning staff will find something in our room, it's clear how the tips are distributed!

The GPS offers us two almost simultaneous routes to Siffiano, and we decide against Switzerland! We don't know exactly which roads there require tolls and vignettes! So, towards Turin and then Milan and up to Bolzano in the north. Those were our preliminary considerations. We stick to them, but the tunnel under Mont Blanc, Europe's highest mountain, was not included! 7.5 kilometers at a maximum speed of 70 km/h and a minimum distance of 150 m to the preceding vehicle, that was also not! It's a strange situation when you're in a line of cars, lose some time, and then have to pay €48 at a toll booth. As a reward, we go into the Frejus Tunnel and hope that everything goes well! And it did, as did the rest of the journey of about 450 km! Of course, the driving style in Italy is different, and the traffic signs lose their importance, so full concentration! As a precaution, we refueled in France, but the prices in Italy don't differ much. It was noticeable that 95 E 5 is available here again. And an audio play that really exhausted us because it described 1920s Berlin as an absolute Sodom and Gomorrah, where anything was allowed. Very contrived and we both stopped listening to it in the end. Terrible!

We already know the exit Bozen-Nord and the way up to Klobenstein. We are always impressed by the many hairpin bends that constantly take us higher with the 'Wild Hilde'! And then the view of the Schlern! Amazing, especially since there is fresh white snow on the summits all around here. Only a thin layer, but it's very surprising for us, who came from weeks of 30°C. Anyway, we arrived at Schlosshof after about 6 hours, and Mathilde immediately informed us, after the joy of reunion, that we should sleep in the 'Chestnut Apartment' for one night, more comfortable than the sauna. And soon I sat outside with a jug of red wine, enjoying being at home. As always, Mathilde had many guests again, and we received many offers of food! We had bought a few small things (potatoes and curd) for self-catering because it was Saturday. We didn't need them, but all the considerations failed when it came to cigarette tobacco. Tobacco is not available everywhere here, and the stores were closed? Only a hint about the bar in the sports center of Klobenstein could help! So relaxation in the courtyard was complete. Please don't forget that we could immediately perform helpful services with Bernd and Martina, who had arrived a few days before us. Carry food to the guests, set up the festival tent, get radiant heaters from the barn, and so on! Walter, the castle administrator, enjoyed our helpfulness, and we immediately felt 'at home'. Only the red wine, which I had prepared myself the previous year, doesn't taste good to me?!? Let's see how things continue here in the next few days?!