Thursday: Goats and Old Town Sterzinger
Today we are rested and set to go to the Italian Alps and on to see a beautiful old town called Sterzinger. We ride along the misty, cold mountaintops and stop to see long-haired goats at a bend in the road. They seem to have no trouble meandering along the sides of these cliffs, just like you imagine as a child growing up. Are two legs shorter than the others?! I stop to take a series of photographs of these friendly creatures. They are beautiful, and apparently the focus of a niche agriculture business in Europe, supplying milk for goat cheese and other high end dairy products. Very expensive, Frank tells us.
We have coffee at a restaurant precariously propped on the top of a ridge overlooking yet another magnificent valley and series of waterfalls and rushing rivers. 
The women in the group laugh because we are all so taken with European WC’s (water closets). The bathrooms are small but beautifully decorated, with every marvel known. Automatic deoderizers that mist the air when you walk in, powerful flushing, automatic seat de-germers (that was in the St. Moritz sailing club) that slide the seat around through a grip that has bacterial spray of some kind (hard to imagine it until you see it). Every WC is immaculate. Wish the U.S. would pick up on this trend.
Our late morning drive is through another mountain pass that is covered in hemlock trees – they look like lacy cedars. The air is thick with their fragrance, and you feel as though you are in a scene from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. It is peaceful and entrancing, and my music of choice only adds to the escape. My iPod has become an important accessory for me on this trip as I am, like most people, carried away by great music. (See my play list at the end of each day.) My mind wanders a lot as we ride, and I really have time to examine life and consider possibilities. It is an other-worldly experience.
Raye is a great driver, and I am starting to get used to not having any real assignment in all this experience. I am just to hang on and take it all in, and then be sure to tell him what I saw since he is mostly watching the road. We see villages laid out up and down the sides of the mountains as well as waterfalls cascading down steep cliffs, barns, trails, pastures, rivers following the fall of the land. One scene after another – you just can’t imagine that things will get any prettier, and then they do.
We pass through a small town called St. Leonardo – it is apparently a resort town I fall in love with. As in many communities, there is a “sportsplatz” – sports field. Soccer, of course. This town also has the first public “swimmbad” – swimming pool – we have seen so far. Not too sunny during July and August, these are actually the rainiest months of the year in the Alps. We have been lucky to enjoy so much sun this week, and I sat out by the pool at our small inn two different occasions.
The buildings in St. Leonardo and many other towns like it are beautifully decorated with metalwork signs or murals painted on the walls. It is interesting to note a common practice that buildings feature tromp l’oiel painted trim around the windows to give the appearance of ornate wood carvings or stucco trim. At first you don’t notice that it is just a painted effect, but once you do it is fun to admire the artist’s abilities to fool the eye. And it becomes just something else to watch for and enjoy.
We see a lot of mothers out walking their children along the sidewalks during our rides. Not sure if I don’t notice this so much in the U.S. anymore since my children are now 9 and 12, but it does reinforce the more laid back atmosphere of this region. I am also surprised to learn from our guide that most shops close from 1-3 p.m. every day. My driven nature just can’t imagine doing this, but the concept grows on me a little. Raye and I have noticed we have both slept about 8 hours a night while on this trip and a number of other things don’t seem to bother us like they do in our hectic American lives.
Just another 30 minutes or so and we come down from the mountains into the town of Sterzinger set in a beautiful valley. We park our bikes in the town square and walk into the old part of town, a pedestrian-only area of cobblestones with shops situated one after the other. I take dozens of pictures of the shop signs – pieces of art created out of metal and wood with painted letters and pictures to depict the business inside. I liken these images to ephemera – old advertising and labels that many people collect. I also capture a number of carved wooden doorways that are another indication of the craftsman so prevalent in the region.
We walk through a giant tower archway made of stone which is in the center of the old town. 
It features a large clock that appears to keep accurate time punctuated by the occasional chimes on the quarter hour. Lunch is in an old pub with a huge green tile stove just inside the front door. A brief sun shower keeps the midday cool but not particularly wet, thank goodness.
We head back through a beautiful valley and another pass with a small number of turns, but mostly it is a leisurely ride with some spotty rain. Before dinner we all gather on the deck overlooking mountain peaks just behind the hotel. We laugh and talk of the sites of the day – everyone loves motorcycling, and the men talk for hours on end about bikes, cars and every kind of racing that exists. They even have a competition, comparing the number of cylinders represented in everyone’s garage back home. It is another fantastic day. I sleep like a baby.
iPod playlist: The Guess Who, The Doors, Steve Miller
Want to see more photos? Click on the set “Thursday: Goats and Old Town Sterzinger” to see my “goat series” and my “sign series” — plus take a step back in time into beautiful Sterzinger. This is my favorite collection of photos.
