Category: Europe January 2019

Bozen

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.

Here are a few pics…

It was a day of many “highs”!!!

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 2^nd photo, Mike & I are looking up at Brian on the balcony of “our little hut”, 3^rd photo!

We stopped for a drink and appetizer in the bar close to our apartment

Brian with a nice, dark beer

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 29^th!

We flew home Tuesday, the 29^th … 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!

BIATHLONTRAVEL.DE / MIKE SEMISCH TOURS

Email: info@mike-semisch-tours.de

www.biathlontravel.de

www.mike-semisch-tours.de

Facebook Page: Biathlontravel.de