Get over it!
That’s how I feel when I’m in the Dolomites. In 1919, more than a century ago, the Austrians lost the Tyrol and Trentino regions to the Italians, at the end of World War I. As a casual visitor, you would never know that.
Sure, the Italian and EU flags are flying from public buildings, and pizza and pasta are on offer everywhere. But everything is offered in both German and Italian, with German being preferred. Enough already! When, if ever, will they feel fully Italian?
In the Italian Alps, which butt up against the French ones, much of the signage is also in French, to assist the local visitors, in the same way Maine might do to accommodate Canadian tourists. But here, one steps off the train in Bolzano and wonders if you’ve gotten off at the wrong stop and ended up in Switzerland or Austria instead. You feel like you’re on location for The Sound of Music. It’s beautiful, no doubt about it, but the buildings, the landscape, the food, the shops, the talk on the street — none of it seems Italian.
Bolzano is lovely, geared to an affluent clientele. The shops in the town and the shiny mall in the center are all the high-end international brands one would find in the swankiest shopping districts anywhere.
But the main attraction is the hiking in the summer and the skiing in the winter, and we took full advantage of the trails, first taking cable cars and an old-timey train to get to our (read Ben’s) well-researched, preferred starting points.
If I were in the U.S. and found myself in an area where everything was also in a language other than English, say Spanish or Vietnamese, I would be totally in support, if I even noticed it at all. So why does it bug me here? Maybe I’m the one who needs to get over it.
Gigi's Italia 