The Alpine Rose Trail 6 8 08

We awoke early as we had planned a long day in the hills. We wanted to do the Alpine Rose Trail but I also wanted to go up the cable car on the other side of the valley to the very highest point, Valluga 2. We walked to Rendl cable car, the first obstacle was an escalator, I went on with Ben and got to the top no hassle. Dan flatly refused to go on so I had to run back down the fast moving up escalator to carry him up. The cable car is older and more noisy than the ones we have been on but they settled down quickly.

When we arrived at the top we realised that we had to walk uphill, didn’t sign up for this but we’re here now. The weather was really good, blue skies and just a little cloud.

We set off up the hill following a few other people, this is a popular walk, we even saw and passed 2 nuns.

2 Nuns

2 – well, not Nuns

We walked round the edge so that we could look down into the valley, the views are stunning. It was a narrow path with some steep drop offs.

These metal contraptions are Avalanche protection systems for the town, it stops or at least breaks up any avalanches if they are heading for the town. Not very pretty but necessary.

A little view of St Anton through the barriers.

We saw a a lot of people on this walk.

After a long walk along the hillside, the path turned downhill, quite steeply. We saw a young couple walking towards us, she was obviously taking pictures of the dogs but trying to pretend that she was photographing the landscape. We stopped and chatted, they were from Italy and she had a Collie at home, we got them to pose for photographs.

We came across a little cafe, a welcome oasis in the hills. We had a snack and a drink before we entered the forest and continued our downhill walk.

I wanted to go up to Valluga 2 today, the pic above shows Valluga 1, right at the top of the right hand hill. The cable car goes from the hill on the left to the hill on the right – straight across the valley, not for the faint hearted. Valluga 2 is even higher. If you click the pic and look closely you might see a cable car in the middle of the sky.

We finished our walk by the railway line at 3pm, we walked just under 10km, the dogs probably did double that. We walked over to Galzig cable car, this is the big modern one that the dogs like. We got a car to ourselves.

We took the car to the main first)station then I left Susan and the dogs and went onto Valluga 1, it is a fairly big car and the driver comes in with you. It was me and 2 Italian families, they asked if I was from New Zealand as I was wearing a New Zealand cap. I told them I was from Scotland, he got very excited and showed me his socks which had the saltire on them, they then all sang Flower of Scotland. Apparently they all love Scotland.

These were taken from the cable car Valluga 1, the last one is the shadow of the car.

Looking back to the first station

Me and my new Italian friends boarded Valluga 2 car, it only takes 6 people, there was actually 8 of us but 4 were children so that was ok. The man just shuts the door and sets you off across the valley, pretty scary. We are heading for the top of the mountain in the middle of the pic above.

The top is pretty small, just a small mountain top with a satellite station on it as well as a toilet and a cable car station.

My new Italian friends took this for me. I spoke to Susan on the walkie talkie then we all got back in the car for the journey down. We changed to Valluga 1 then down to the main station where Susan and the dogs were. We all got in the main car to the village.

We had a snack in the town the went back to the house.

Later in the evening we collected Helen then joined some of her friends for a meal at a mountain restaurant. We had ribs and garlic bread, it was very nice and a pleasant evening.

We walked along this path to the restaurant