Fantastic Saturday

After a nice walk up to Voeran, Saturday in the afternoon I finally went to the Gardens of Trauttmansdorff Castle. How amazing flowers and colours just can be...
More pics :)

My curious furry model

Today I had the chance to walk with two friends of mine and another friend they are allowed to walk out on Sundays: Willy :)
The curious white doggy loves to walk on the Tappeinerweg, he has enjoyed the sun and has been a gorgeous model for me today :)


My springomether keeps growing, the only thing missing now is... the flowers!! :( Maybe I did something wrong...
-28 days to my beloved spring!

The springomether | another week passed :)

It's amazing how many things can happen in one single week... You can be totally happy, angry, relaxed, sad, enthusiastic, disappointed, hopefull and even grow a little bit :)

After a snowing Friday and a strange Saturday, the sun kissed Merano today, it was so lovely that you could even walk without your jacket! The best time for enjoying Merano peacefully! A friend of mine took her mum here from Verona to spend a well-being week-end at the Therme, with massages, health packages and nice food.
I bought them two Faschingskrapfen with apricot jam, an unrenouceable delicacy in February!
-42 days to my beloved spring!

The springomether | a week after :)

Here it is, the actual state of my personal springomether :)
Maybe its bulbs are like people, they let their most energic side pop out of them with different rhythms... -48 days to our most beautiful season :)

The springomether

Last year my aunt Doris gave me a small vase of beautiful narcissi. I cut them as they drooped and let the bulbs in the balcony.
Two weeks ago some green spots magically appeared from them :)
Now I'm following their growth and will keep track of it, it will be my personal springomether :)
This is its stage today!
Happy spring-countdown to everybody!

My hibernation... abroad!

It's amazing how fast time passes...!
Shame on me, hibernating like that for over two months...!
Well, there are good reasons for not being online during the last time :) I had the awesome chance to enjoy some free time abroad, where I could recharge my batteries with new cultures, languages, colours, food, architecture... I love travelling!!!

While I took my dreamy parentheses around Europe, Merano kept drinking wine, playing music and celebrating Christmas with many other enthusiasts :)
November was the time for the world's best wines in the Kurhaus with the WineFestival, a long red carpet welcomed the visitors on the Freiheitsstrasse and many precious wines were awaiting them in the inside.

As soon as the gastronomic tent of the MIWF was removed, diligent men started mounting the little wooden houses of the Christmas Market. This year the weather was gentle, it snew 3-4 times, the mountains are still covered by a white blanket :) What I can't stop watching during the Christmas Market, are the black sheep staying in a small cot on the Thermenplatz: mummy, daddy and their children, they are just soooo cute! People go mad for them!

In December I was particularly diligent and Christmas-minded :) I made a lot of Christmas biscuits! It's a nice South Tyrolean tradition I love! South Tyrolean women start baking biscuits various weeks before Christmas (the more they are kept in the box, the better they get) and give them as a gift to those people who deserve them ;)
I still have a small number of them, which I gelously conserve in my last, smallest box...

Thanks to the big effort of the Tourist Authority, the New Year was celebrated with music and fireworks and my city colourfully started its 2010!

Since last Friday the days have become sunnier and brighter, my narcissi are miraculously coming up from their dried little bulbs... Wow...
I'll talk to you soon again, my winter sleep has finished :)

A beautiful experience

Two weeks without writing... I nearly felt guilty and thought even more time had passed...! Now I have so much adrenalin moving through my veins that I have to write what happened 2day :)
A troupe of the tv sender ORF came to Merano to make some shoots of some prearrangements of the Merano Grape Festival. We went to the Promenade where the market is being prepared and filmed the beautiful stony giant grape made by the diligent workers of the department for Municipal authority streets and infrastrutures last year.Municipal plant nursery Merano and the gardeners showed us how they prepare the red and white carnations they fix on the eagle (the emblem of Merano). The eagle is in the domicile of the department for Municipal authority streets and infrastrutures, awaiting to be prepared for Sunday :)
Then we went to Marling, where Mr. and Mrs. Arquin welcomed us with homemade Strudel and coffee. The carriage is already in a advanced building phase, there were various men working on it, hammering the apples with nails on it. the Goidnerhof - absolutely perfect and everybody happy :) These are the kind of expereinces which make my stressy job worth it :)

Sunny September

The days are finally getting fresher now. As nearly every year September is wonderfully sunny :) It happens to have rainy and windy nights, after those the day appears totally clean - washed by the pattering water - and colourful.
During the day you can still walk in your T-shirt under the sun and enjoy the bright green still dominating the landscape.
My favourite trail for walking and jogging is the beloved Tappeinerweg, you can reach it in 10 min. by walking and in a few steps you already watch over Merano and its valleys. An amazing gift of the Austrina doctor, botanist and anthropologist Franz Tappeiner, who made it possible to have so many Mediterranean plants cropped in Merano. Probably the only city in the alps with its own palm trees, cacti and cluster figs.
On Saturady I enjoyed a nice walk and watched the many flowers, grapes and apples growing in the sun... Cool :)

It's raining man!

As I came back from Innsbruck 2day, I hoped it wouldn't be raining so much in Merano too. It's amazing to be able to cross from a nation into another, so different one, and having 10 degrees difference after an hour and a half trip by car! As I arrived, it was hot and just silently, gently drizzling on the trees, what doesn't impede plenty of leaves to fall so much earlier than they should... And now it's getting heavier and heavier, with some strong wind gust from time to time... I've brought my sunflower into the dining room again and hope it will see the sun again 2morrow.