OMG, what an exciting race!!!!!!!! Christian did so well!!! He was
always in the mix… his skiing…. man, he stayed right there with all the big
names!!! And his shooting… awesome!!… 19/20! And finishing with a Personal
Best of 11th place, only 34 sec behind the Winner (the race was 15 km long, and
the Winner finished in 36:44 (min:sec).
We saw Christian in his warm-up and he waved to us as he went by, and Scott stopped on his way up to where he wanted/needed to be. After the race, Scott came down to where we were and Christian came by during his cool-down… we had a wonderful chat and a few pics.
We didn’t hear a count for the number of people, but we think at
least 25,000, maybe more. We watched from the Course again… back in the same
spot as on Saturday, and in the sun!
We did not stay for the Women’s Mass Start; with no Canadians in
it, we decided to miss the mass exodus (and I mean MASSIVE exodus), and came
back to town early. We had a rest, then went to a nearby town called Inzell for
an early supper.
Here are some pics from today… Scott, before the race started, all of us together after the race and one of Brian on our walk back from the shuttle.
Sharing one of Christian’s photos, with Emma, from after today’s
race.
We left Ruhpolding about 10:30 am, with a gift of a bottle of Glühwein from our Hostess; and armed with our mandatory-for-Austria Yellow Vests (for safety, already in the trunk of our SUV) and mandatory-for-Austria “Vignette” (a sticker we had to buy for the car, €9 for 10 days, to pay for Austrian roads). Off we went to Salzburg!!
On a side note…driving has gone fairly well here, we have Google
Maps and the SUV has navigation… between the two navigational systems and
road signs, we seem to figure it out.
The center of Salzburg is absolutely beautiful!! I wish we had had sun, rather than overcast, but it was wonderful to be warm enough for our lighter coats (sweaters).
In the first pic, Brian is on a pedestrian bridge with the Old City
of Salzburg behind him, including the Hohensalzburg Fortress (“High
Salzburg Fortress”). It’s one of
the largest medieval castles in Europe, construction began in 1077!
The next two pics are of streets in the Aldstadt (“Old City”) …
lots of shops and more shops and restaurants.
Salzburg
Cathedral
The current Salzburg Cathedral is a 17th Century Baroque Cathedral (it was founded in 774, rebuilt in 1181 after a fire, then rebuilt again in the 17C in the Baroque style). We didn’t get a good photo of the outside, but here are a few from the inside…
Salzburg: St
Peter’s Cemetery Near Cathedral
Close to the Cathedral was a little cemetery… up in the cliff is what we think is an
entrance to the Fortress; the second pic is a close-up…
Austrian Alps
We had a beautiful drive from Salzburg to South Tyrol in Italy. Here are some pics in Austria from the drive…
We arrived and settled into our apartment in Italy! We had a lovely
drive… really amazing roads/tunnels; part autobahn, part smaller highway.
But…. we had a bit of an adventure upon arrival, all turned out just fine, not to worry! Two addresses on hotel voucher, one address on itinerary, none the same! 😬 Our Host had to leave before we arrived for a dental emergency, but we were able to find the apartment with a few e-mails with him. We got into our apartment, then headed out to get more of our bags from the suv. We left the front door unlocked, and left the apartment key in the room… UH-OH… the front door had a secret self-lock… oh, caa-caa, both apartment keys are IN the room, and so is my cell!!! Eeks! Fortunately, we had B’s cell in the suv and we had the keys to the suv! We went next door for supper, emailed our Host…his father met us and let us back in! And, he bought us wine for OUR mistake!!! 🍷🍷 We figured we should make another mistake the next day!!!😆
We decided to be out-and-about the next day, exploring our area… and
figuring out EXACTLY where we were! 😂
So, as promised we found out exactly where we were!
We were in Italy… although this region used to be Austria. Right after WW1, this region was given to Italy. Mussolini demanded Italian in the area, and had all of the towns, cities, roads and even people’s names renamed in Italian; he actually jailed people for speaking German in public! After WW2, things relaxed, but… everything now has two names, one in German and one in Italian.
So, we were in the Province of South Tyrol (German), Province
of
Bolzano (Italian). We were in the
village of Olang (German), Valdaora (Italian). AND… the village had what I
can only say are like neighborhoods… we were in Oberolang (German), Valdaora
di Sopra (Italian), meaning Upper Olang. Nearby is Mitterolang (G), Valdaora
Mezzo (I), meaning Middle Olang.
It explains why the World Cup is in Antholz-Anterselva… German
name, then Italian name.
Over 60% speak German, so most people were using the German names.
On Tuesday, we wandered around Oberolang, in the beautiful
sunshine!
This Church was just outside the front door of our apartment building; this is the back of the Church, Brian is at the top of a set of stairs to the road below our apartment, and the last photo is on the east side of Oberolang, looking approximately north, into the valley where the races will be.
Some more pics from the east side of Oberolang…
And yes, that is a ski area behind me in one of the pics… called Kronplatz. (We thought about going up for a couple hours Wednesday. We could have rented equipment, and made do with the clothes we brought, but it was overcast and without goggles, it would have been tough to see. So our Wednesday adventure took us in another direction!)
We wandered down to Mitterolang, to a little grocery store, to pick up… wine and cheese and olives and smoked salmon and chocolate and …. Grappa!!! A little bottle of Italian “white lightning”! And, I know why I don’t drink it much at our Italian friends’ home in Calgary!!! Tastes like White Lightning! 😆
Brian couldn’t decide on wine or grappa or pills! Turns out, all three! 🤣
Wednesday was overcast in Oberolang, and snowing lightly in the morning, so we decided to go for a drive. We drove down through the Dolomite Mountains, starting at ~ 3770 ft (~ 1150 m), to Bozen at ~ 850 ft (~ 260 m) —- quite a climate change! Once we got to about 2000 ft, we started seeing vineyards, on very steep slopes, and lots of them!!
Brian found the drive
“intense”… “white knuckle”. The roads were either 2-lane, narrow and
winding Secondary Highways, or “drive like a bat out of hell” 4-lane Autobahn
with a bazillion large trucks in the right lane (thankfully, they have to stay
there). It takes both of us to get anywhere!
But… all is good!!
We went into the medieval
city center of Bozen, had some lunch in the Piazza, then wandered through the
old streets…. it was all shops, mostly fashion, and very expensive. But,
absolutely beautiful!! Very cool buildings and streets! And part was a food
market as well.
Here are some pics in the
Piazza…
Here are some pics of the old
streets…
When we came to the edge of
the Aldstadt (“Old City”), we came to a river (I think it’s the Talavera
River), with a park along it…
Bruneck
On the way back to Oberolang,
we stopped in the town of Bruneck. As the crow flies, our apartment was just
across the hill from Bruneck… the ski area was on our side and on Bruneck’s
side. It’s about a 20 min drive to go around.
It’s also an old city, lots
of great old buildings!
Supper with Scott & Christian & Emma
The Canadian Team stayed about a 10 min drive north from us…. they were on the road that goes up to the Biathlon Center, close to a village called Antholz Niedertal.
We didn’t get a great photo at supper, here’s the best we did get.
After supper, Emma worked
with Pavel (their Shooting Coach) and with their Shooting Program (a
computer-based laser, indoor shooting system), and we got to go in for a
minute.
It was a gorgeous day!! The Biathlon Center is in an incredible setting!! The shuttle buses ran very smoothly, but they dropped us about a kilometer from the Main Entrance. It was slightly uphill, and the walk was tough for some spectators. We were okay though.
Here are some pics of the
scenery…
Here’s Emma, at the Start and at the Finish. I didn’t have the zoom lens on… 😕 We were in the Grandstand Standing section, looking at the Start/Finish and Penalty Loop; the Range was off to our right.
Kronplatz “Fire & Ice Show”
Every Thursday up on the
Kronplatz Ski Hill they have a “Fire & Ice Show”. We had perfect
timing to get off the Biathlon Shuttle, catch the local bus to the ski hill and
watch the Show!! It was great fun! It was about 45 min long, we watched from
the Après Ski Bar…
A couple more from Kronplatz,
and Brian in front of our apartment after supper…
We had another gorgeous day!! We decided to try On Course instead of the Grandstand… thinking we could be close to the track to see all the competitors and use the LiveData (internet) during the race to “see” the shooting results and standings. Twas a bust!! 😣 We could see the racers okay, and Brian’s height allowed him to get some good pics of Scott & Christian, but…. I could not get the LiveData to load, and we couldn’t see a screen worth a damn. We were totally in the dark for how the race was going for Scott & Christian, well…. for the whole field actually.
We bumped into Christian on
our way in to the Biathlon Center! He told us that as he was heading to his
shuttle ride back to his hotel he wondered if we were there yet; he looked into
the people filing in and there we were, right beside him!! He yelled to us, we
had a quick hug and chat, then his shuttle had to leave…all too quick to get
a pic! But was a “high” to bump into him!!
We wandered around at bit and
found yet another gorgeous area up here!! We bumped into a beautiful little
lake! … Antholzer See (German) / Lago di Anterselva (Italian). A
“high” for sure!
We ended up standing next to
the Course, along a little creek that flows out of the lake…
We loved watching the race
from our “little spot”! It wasn’t too crowded, everyone was friendly and
having fun, there was a little hut there with food & drink & WC, and…
I could get the LiveData on my phone!!!!
The Italians are absolutely okay with people taking their own food and
drink into the Center, so we took our own lunch!!
Prior to the race, they
cleaned the Course! 😃 And, Scott found us during his warm-up and stopped on his
way by!!
The race was fun to watch!
Here are a couple pics of Scott….
We finished our day having
supper with Scott & Christian & Emma, a great end to a great day!
We had another great day…
watching Christian race the Mass Start, including a great visit with Scott
before the race.
And, we bumped into our
Travel Agent, Mike, so had a great visit with him too! In the 2nd photo, Mike & I are
looking up at Brian on the balcony of “our little hut”, 3rd photo!
Mike Semisch
We stopped for a drink and
appetizer in the bar close to our apartment
We left Oberolang and headed
back to Munich. There was new snow overnight, but the roads were only wet, so
no problem at all. Traffic from some reason was slow, but we were not in any
rush.
We stopped in Innsbruck, Austria along the way. We went into the Aldstadt (Old City), wandered around, had some lunch.
And home on the 29th!
We flew home Tuesday, the 29th
… all went smoothly! We picked up the doggies about 4 pm – they were pretty
excited to see us!!
Brian & I were very pleased with all that our travel agents, Mike & Christiane, did for us for this trip – we couldn’t have done it without their help! If ever any of you want to go to any of the World Cup Biathlon events or the Biathlon World Championships, we highly recommend using them!
