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If this is your first visit
to The Val Gardena
you might find yourself more than a bit confused
upon arrival. You might even feel that
your travel agent, tour operator, bus driver or
whatever, made the wrong turn somewhere down the
line and sent you to the wrong destination. All
along you thought you were going to Italy, and
lo and behold here you are in a resort where
everyone around you is speaking German. |
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What's going on here anyway? What's going
on is that you are in Italy's Sud Tirol (South Tirol)
which was once, not so very long ago, an intricate part of
Austria.
And the locals are speaking German because
their grandfathers spoke German, their fathers speak
German and, naturally enough, they speak German too.
Oh they speak Italian too, and a very old
language called Ladinsch, plus a huge number are familiar
with English, but make no mistake.In this multi lingual valley, German is the language of
choice. Austrian food and culture come to the fore here as
well, and one will likely find more weiner schnitzel than
spaghetti on the menu.
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The Gardena Valley stretches placidly from
its almost plain- like origin at the autobahn which
connects Italy with Austria via the Brenner pass, and then
ascends it's way to Selva just before it disappears behind
the majestic peaks of this portion of the Dolomite range.
On its way it cuts through the three main resorts which
are the subject of this story. Ortisei, S. Cristina and
Selva Gardena.
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Here is where you have to make the first of
a series of choices, and we are happy to tell you that in
this executive decision process you virtually cannot screw
up. You can stay where you like and ski where you like,
and the only possible negative side to the outcome is that
you can possibly bite off more ski terrain and resort
possibilities than you can chew. There is that much skiing
and that much selection and price variation to select
from.
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