The gods of traffic must have been with us on the longest leg of the trip from Prague to Vipiteno, because apart from 20 minutes spent in a queue on the Pilsen highway, we miraculously avoided all other jams… and there were plenty! For the first time I witnessed the insane weekend jams that regularly plague Germany, and all of them were in the opposite direction. Some were at least 5 km long. The Austrian highway was empty, which is probably due to the fact that nobody wants to waste 10 € for a highway sticker to subsequently drive at a snail’s pace of 100 km/h.
The weather was fine across Germany and I was losing all faith in forecasting until we crossed the border and the clouds started looming overhead. Perhaps the weather will be miserable all weekend after all, as promised. But as long as there isn’t snow in Cortina, it doesn’t matter.
The gods of traffic intervened again (with some contribution from my excellent planning skills) to take us off the highway immediately after crossing into Italy and literally 100 m before the tail end of a 6 km jam. It was dusk by then and rather pleasing indeed to wind smoothly along the old road deep in the valley while thousands of cars stood high up on the highway above us.
We were racing to get to the hotel on time for dinner, having been told that the kitchen closes at 21:00. We made it 10 minutes earlier! And then saw another 10 people come in after said closing deadline to enjoy a complete meal without a hint of concern. I have to keep in mind the Italian concept of punctuality. When in Trentino, you must eat their spinach and cheese dumplings. These were of the rather bready and solid kind, but the butter and white wine made them go down easy.
The air is fresh, the bed is clean, the room is quiet and it’s time to sleep.