|
Tuesday, May 1 Written by: Brian
Ciao Italy, Guten Tag Austria
On our travels North to Austria, our last stop was in the mountain town of Bolzano. Bolzano is located in the Italian Alps, better know to the Italians as the Dolomite's due to the spire rock structures that crest the horizon.
From my understanding, in 1918, at the end of World War I the region of Trentino also known in German as the Welschtirol, and the southern part of the primarily German-speaking Tyrol were occupied by the Italian Army and thereafter annexed. Now that you know a little of the history of Bolzano, there are also a couple other things that it is famous for.
It is the home of Reinhold Messner, the famous mountaineer, who in 1980 was the first person to ascend Mount Everestalone without supplementary oxygen. This was the first time anyone had been that high without bottled oxygen and Messner proved what most doctors, specialists, and mountaineers thought impossible and it changed mountaineering forever. In 1986 he also became the first to climb all fourteen eight-thousanders (peaks over 8,000 metres above sea level, sometimes referred to as Crown of the Himalayas).
It is also the home of Ötzi the Iceman, now I know most of you are thinking who the heck is Otzi, well let me tell you. 5000 years ago, a 40-45 year old man was walking in the mountains and had just finished his last meal 8 hours ago which consisted of chamois meat, the other of red deer meat. Both were eaten with some grain as well as some roots and fruits. His cloths were very sophisticated for this time period. He was wearing a cloak made of woven grass and a vest, a belt, a pair of leggings, a loincloth and shoes, all made of leather. He also wore a bearskin cap with a leather chin strap. His shoes were waterproof and wide, seemingly designed for walking across the snow; they were constructed using bearskin for the soles, deer hide for top panels, and a netting made of tree bark. Straw grass went around the foot and in the shoe to keep his feet warm. His belt had a pouch sewn to it that contained mainy useful items: a scraper, drill, flint flake, bone awl, and a dried fungus to be used as tinder.
Other items he was carring were a copper axe, a flint knife with an ash handle, a quiver of 14 bone-tipped arrows with flint heads (two arrows were finished, twelve were not), and an unfinished longbow.
So what happened to Otzi, it is theorized that he was shot with and arrow as there was an arrowhead cut in one shoulder when he died, matching a small tear on his coat. The arrow shaft had been removed, apparently by a companion. He had a deep wound on the base of his thumb that cut down to the bone. An absence of scar tissue indicates that the injury occurred shortly before his death. He also had bruises and cuts on his hands, wrists, and chest. DNA analysis revealed traces of blood from four other people on his gear: one from his knife, two from the same arrowhead, and a fourth from his coat. He was wounded in the conflict, and probably died within several minutes due to massive blood loss, as a result of a flint arrowhead severing his left subclavian artery.
Because Otzi died in the ice his bodz was almost perfecltly persevered. He is currenlty resting behind glass in a room that is kept at 21.2 degrees farheight to ensure there is no decay.
Now you know about Utzi, and since you made it through that lecture and were patient here is the funny part of our trip to Bolzano.
Susan wanted to go see another museum as well, the Musuem of Natural Science. It shows how and when the Alps/Dolomites were formed. I thought not a bad idea, it sounden educational, there was nothing else to do as everything was pretty much closed because it was Sunday. We enter the Musuem and pay a 5 Euro a piece to and head into the musuem. Well guess we never thought that there wouldnt be ANY Elnglish in the museum and in a Natural History museum you would have to do a lot of reading or you wouldnt understand what you were seeing. We made the best of it and laughed along the way, there we some cool pictures but we could not tell you that we learned anything there. We are now in Salzburg, Austria for the next couple days, then on to Vienna.
Susans German is going to have to pull the next two weeks as the only thing I know is Guten Tag (hello), Mach Schnell (hurry up, which I learned in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) and Lederhosen (which are leather knickers, which if you were wondering, I will not be wearing). I already miss using my Italian, I think I was getting pretty good. One last thing, we have added a new section to the website named In a Nutshell, it will give you our ideas on the countries we visit. Check it out and let us know what you think.
Auf Wiedersehen (Bye, which I just learned)  Comments (1) |  Add as favourites (43) | Views: 347
|
Italy 