South Tyrol Part II: Vögele and Avalon in Bolzano, Stafellalm

Bolzano, the capital of South Tyrol, has a charming old city center. My favorite part are the medieval arcades found all along the Laubengasse and throughout other parts of the city center. It's a fun town to go shopping in. Worth visiting is Seibstock Delicatessen, which sells fresh goods, such as pasta and hams, as well as shelf-stable goods, such as coffee and liquors. 

When we visited we by chance ended up having lunch at Vögele, a restaurant commonly recommended in guidebooks. We sat outside under the arcade. I went for the lunch trio, which was penne with pesto, fried zucchini with mozzarella and meat tortellini in ham and cream sauce. J. had the veal tenderloin served with a slice of bread dumpling (Semmelknödel) and chanterelle sauce. Both meals came with a mixed salad. We were quite full by the end of the meal, but everything was tasty.

 

For dessert I just had to try the gelato at Avalon, which I had read about. It's a short walk from the city center and very much worth it. I had the Manjari chocolate, which was made with Madagascan Valrhona chocolate, and the coconut ice cream made with Sri Lankan coconut. Both were very tasty and full of flavor, not full of fake flavoring commonly found in ice cream sold in gelaterias. 

On one of our hiking days we hiked up to Stafellalm from Verdins. Although the weather changed from cool to cloudy to drizzly to stormy the hike was beautiful as it led us through forests and meadows. The highlight was the Stafellalm where we had lunch in the smaller of the two houses. Due to the bad weather we were the only guests there. The woman running the hut was very kind. We decided to go with the typical drinks of home-made syrup mixed with water. I had raspberry and J. had elderflower. We liked them so much we bought a bottle each to take home. Then I had Tiroler Apfelschmarren, which is similar to an apple pancake but broken into pieces. J. had a noodle soup with beef. We both didn't think we'd finish our meals, but we were so hungry and the food was so delicious that we even had room for marble cake. It was one of the few "not dry" marble cakes I've ever had. 

South Tyrol Part I: Thurnerhof in Scena

Just spent my first vacation in South Tyrol (Italian: Alto Adige, German: Südtirol), Northern Italy, a region where Italian and German are the two main languages. This provides for a very interesting dialect that at times sounds like a mix of Austrian and Swiss German with a sprinkling of Italian. We booked last minute so several hotels we called had no more vacancies. We finally came  across Schlosswirt in Scena in a guide book and booked a room for a week. It was a very clean hotel with spacious rooms and a nice breakfast buffet. The only disadvantage were the nearby church bells that woke us at an ungodly hour. 

On our first night we went to the rustic Thurnerhof, just a short walk away from our hotel through the typical South Tyrolian apple orchards. We were lucky that it was warm enough to sit outside or we wouldn't have gotten a seat inside as the restaurant is quite popular. 

We got started off with a basket of typical South Tyrolian breads including Schüttelbrot, a dry flatbread made of a mix of rye and wheat flour and spiced with fennel and caraway seeds as well as anise, coriander and fenugreek.

As a main I had the curious dish of mixed salads with the South Tyrolian specialty of bacon dumplings (Speckknödel). Who came up with the idea of putting hot dumplings on cold salad? It's delicious nonetheless.

 

J. had Tafelspitz (boiled beef) with vegetables, potatoes and South Tyrolian apple horseradish cream. Also a very tasty dish.

For dessert we shared a dessert platter, which turned out to be amaretto semifreddo, chocolate mousse and apple strudel (another South Tyrolian specialty). The semifreddo was very good, the other two a little disappointing due to a lack of flavor and strange texture. 

All in all we were really happy with the restaurant and would have gone back on two other occasions had they not been fully booked.