April 2018

Our Spring trip takes Heather and I once again to Italy along with a few other places. We landed in Munich Germany and after securing our rental car headed south to Tuscany. We'll spend three days enjoying various hilltop towns with a brief 4 to 6 hours in Florence itself. Then we're off to Sicily, an eleven hour over night ferry ride from Bari, Italy to Croatia, a day in Montenegro, and then a drive to Mostar in Bosnia. Finally, we'll make our way up the Dalmatian coast as we end our 18 days in Austria and finally back to the airport in Munich.

On the first day, tired from flying but excited to get started on the trip we drove south through the Brenner Pass. A lot has changed since I was a child.

I remember seeing the original construction of the current highway on one of our family's camping trips through Europe, perhaps in 1961 or 62. In one valley they had just finished the incredibly tall concrete pillars that would hold the highway but had not installed the spans that would hold the road way itself. To a child of maybe nine standing in the valley floor, those newly constructed towers seem to reach into the very heaven. The Europa Bridge as it would be called was completed in 1963.

Here are a few pictures Heather took on our drive south.

In some parts of the pass it seems as if there are castles to see every few miles. Of course the settings of each are incredible.

The Brenner Pass as it is now is great for a quick journey but the autobahn/autostrada completely destroyed the experience as it had existed for century upon century. Human use of the pass goes back a long time. The Romans constructed the first road in the second century. It had once taken forever to make it over, but you got to see everything up close. Now you seem to spend all your driving time dodging trucks rather than enjoying the scenery, the small mountain villages, the cool fresh mountain air and of course the occasional castle perched on the side of a mountain. Experiences I can still remember almost 60 years later.