La vita in montagna—making cheese and keeping bees on a mountain farm
2:42 PMIt was exciting enough to go back to Italy, and to be staying at an agriturismo that produces cheese and honey made it even better. And li...
2:42 PM
It was exciting enough to go back to Italy, and to be staying at an agriturismo that produces cheese and honey made it even better.
And little did I know before I arrived that Val di Fassa was a wonder of nature.
After a long journey from Munich to Soraga, I finally got to the farm and met Aurora and Alessandro, the two English speakers in the farm who showed me my little bedroom in the basement. I looked forward to having my own space.
The jobs here were quite varied, thought having said that I didn’t work that hard at all. There were boring tasks that had to be done, like cleaning the apartments all the stalls for cows and goats, and haymaking. Now, haymaking isn’t quite a fun think to do, but when you are making hay on the mountains with incredible view, and it’s a nice sunny day, haymaking can be a fantastic job.
And having a bowl of gelato afterwards only makes it better.
The Brunel family was welcoming and understanding. They let me have my free day on a warm sunny day so that I could go hiking. And the best thing that could happen to me was the fact that I could speak fluent German.
Everybody in South Tyrol (province of Bolzano) speaks German. While English would limit my conversation to only Aurora and Alessandro, her husband, speaking German allowed me to communicate with everyone in the family, including their friends who came for a visit when I was there. It also allowed me to experience the world of honey-making in a little bit more depth through Luigi, Aurora’s dad, who was an experience beekeeper.
Twice we drove two hours down South to visit the bee hives in Samone, took some honey back home and got them ready for the winter with some treatments and syrup. I got too put on the beekeeping suit again and actually handling them. Now I could go back to Little Brympton with a bit more experience!
The choices were endless when it came to my free time. I often woke up early in the morning and go for a refreshing bike ride to take photos of the sunrise in Pozza di Fassa, the neighbouring town. The bicycle track was really well-made here and you can spend a whole day biking through the woods and along the river with lots of picnic spots on the way. Some afternoon after finishing work, I hiked to to Tamion, a little village high up the hill behind the farm. The hike was steep but the view was well worth it, especially at sunset when the top of the mountain turned rose gold.
The nature around me was so spectacular, and often at twilight hours when everything turned pink its beauty touched my heart and made me want to cry.
No, I’m not joking, it was really that amazing.
And every time I got back home just after sunset, I was always grateful for the warm and delicious goodness waiting for me on the table.
It true that South Tyrol’s food was not the most mouthwatering in Italy, most dishes were very similar to Austrian and German cuisine, like potato dumpling or kaisersmarrn, and homemade mountain cheese (bergkäse) Alessandro’s cheeses were awesome, and Aurora even showed me their aging room which was rather magical. All the flavours and aroma that was growing and developing in this damp room with stone wall was the beginning of deliciousness in many of the dishes.
We often eat pasta and risotto, and always salad from the garden, which were delicious. One of the specialities in this are is buckwheat, which I tried in a type of buckwheat pasta called ‘Pizzoccheri alla Valtellinesi’ made with potato and cheese. Sometimes there would be foraged mushrooms from the forest. Everything felt fresh and healthy here, and very fulfilling.
You can never go wrong in such places.
A week later it was the time to say goodbye, as sunny as it was on the day I arrived. There were still so much to discover in this area, but I was equally excited to what would come next.
So I packed my back and walked into the sunshine.
And little did I know before I arrived that Val di Fassa was a wonder of nature.
After a long journey from Munich to Soraga, I finally got to the farm and met Aurora and Alessandro, the two English speakers in the farm who showed me my little bedroom in the basement. I looked forward to having my own space.
The jobs here were quite varied, thought having said that I didn’t work that hard at all. There were boring tasks that had to be done, like cleaning the apartments all the stalls for cows and goats, and haymaking. Now, haymaking isn’t quite a fun think to do, but when you are making hay on the mountains with incredible view, and it’s a nice sunny day, haymaking can be a fantastic job.
And having a bowl of gelato afterwards only makes it better.
The Brunel family was welcoming and understanding. They let me have my free day on a warm sunny day so that I could go hiking. And the best thing that could happen to me was the fact that I could speak fluent German.
Everybody in South Tyrol (province of Bolzano) speaks German. While English would limit my conversation to only Aurora and Alessandro, her husband, speaking German allowed me to communicate with everyone in the family, including their friends who came for a visit when I was there. It also allowed me to experience the world of honey-making in a little bit more depth through Luigi, Aurora’s dad, who was an experience beekeeper.
Twice we drove two hours down South to visit the bee hives in Samone, took some honey back home and got them ready for the winter with some treatments and syrup. I got too put on the beekeeping suit again and actually handling them. Now I could go back to Little Brympton with a bit more experience!
The choices were endless when it came to my free time. I often woke up early in the morning and go for a refreshing bike ride to take photos of the sunrise in Pozza di Fassa, the neighbouring town. The bicycle track was really well-made here and you can spend a whole day biking through the woods and along the river with lots of picnic spots on the way. Some afternoon after finishing work, I hiked to to Tamion, a little village high up the hill behind the farm. The hike was steep but the view was well worth it, especially at sunset when the top of the mountain turned rose gold.
The nature around me was so spectacular, and often at twilight hours when everything turned pink its beauty touched my heart and made me want to cry.
No, I’m not joking, it was really that amazing.
And every time I got back home just after sunset, I was always grateful for the warm and delicious goodness waiting for me on the table.
It true that South Tyrol’s food was not the most mouthwatering in Italy, most dishes were very similar to Austrian and German cuisine, like potato dumpling or kaisersmarrn, and homemade mountain cheese (bergkäse) Alessandro’s cheeses were awesome, and Aurora even showed me their aging room which was rather magical. All the flavours and aroma that was growing and developing in this damp room with stone wall was the beginning of deliciousness in many of the dishes.
We often eat pasta and risotto, and always salad from the garden, which were delicious. One of the specialities in this are is buckwheat, which I tried in a type of buckwheat pasta called ‘Pizzoccheri alla Valtellinesi’ made with potato and cheese. Sometimes there would be foraged mushrooms from the forest. Everything felt fresh and healthy here, and very fulfilling.
You can never go wrong in such places.
A week later it was the time to say goodbye, as sunny as it was on the day I arrived. There were still so much to discover in this area, but I was equally excited to what would come next.
So I packed my back and walked into the sunshine.
