After walking around Bolzano in the morning, we headed to Caldaro which is about 30 minutes from the city. One of my German friends offered to drive down and have lunch with us. I let him pick the restaurant since he is more familiar with the region than me. We have heard of Caldaro because it is on the wine route but I would have never found this restaurant without someone telling me where it was. My friend was driving 4 hours to meet us so we wanted to make sure we were early. We parked in the lot, which at the time was half full. Within the next 30 minutes, the lot was completely full.
The region is full of beautiful vineyards and amazing houses. It makes the Oregon wine region look very small compared to the rolling vineyards here. We had a nice lunch on a patio where we got to spend time catching up. The lunch portion was so large that I’m pretty sure every plate had the equivalent of a full box of pasta on it. I don’t think I even was able to finish half of my plate. Since he had another 4 hour drive back, the visit was not long enough but it was very nice to visit even if it was a short time.
After we left there, we headed down to the lake. It is supposed to be one of the warmest lakes in the Alps. The parking lot was packed and we were lucky to see someone leaving as we came up the aisle. The only thing we couldn’t figure out was if we needed to pay or not. We are pretty sure the sign said something about being a customer, so we paid an entrance fee to one of the restaurants that had a view of the lake. Our car was still there when we got back, so it must have been OK. I did put my feet in the water and it wasn’t too cold. It was a very nice relaxing Sunday.
Fletch Travels 