My roadtrip was wonderful. So many new experiences and an amazing scenery during my drive. It is truly unbelievable what the world has to offer – and you neither have to fly to America nor Asia – the wonders of nature and beautiful surroundings lie ahead a short drive from Munich. Even if I have driven the main part of my route already many times – this time I had such a pleasure, because I soaked it up all by myself without talking to any co-drivers.

Snow, Mountains, Greens, Rocks, Wine Grapes, Zypress, Olive trees, Sun, Lakes… all on one drive to Florence. Unbelievable beautiful images that occurred in front of my eyes – although I couldn’t enjoy them fully as I had to steer the car.

Nevertheless, I loved driving the car down to Italy. You have to know that I am a roadtrip type of person, thats why far distances have never mattered to me. But I wanted to do the travel in 3 different stops, since I didn’t want to drive down the whole route to Florence and missing my favourite town on the way: Bolzano (why: click here).

As usual when I’m in Bozen, I was staying at the Laurin Hotel.

The hotel contacted me already in advance of my stay apologising for the inconvenience they will cause during the night of my stay, because of a Food Festival was happening in their garden. Several local award winning cooks did in total eight dishes – each on their own “food station”. However, to me this was a “Jackpot” – of course I didn’t mind the inconvenience – quite the contrary: I reserved me already a ticket for the food festival in advance!

And this was also the highlight of the day in Bozen. After having had the obligatory gelato, a walk through the city center and some sun-bathing, I was among the first persons on the festival. There were a lot of wineries present who let you try several wines and of course I took advantage of this (but since I was travelling alone I only took a few sips each) and I learned about a winery I didn’t know yet (Eisacktaler Kellerei) which I will definitely visit during my next travel to Italy.

But now to the food: It was “fair & local cooking night”, and the cooks were creating a diverse menu that included local ingredients but also fair trade items from all over the world. Everything was prepared barbecue style in the garden of the hotel. All tasted delicious and each course was exciting, also because every cook prepared something different in style from each other. Now some of the courses in pictures:

Tomato gazpacho with grilled char and kataifi.

Risotto with artichoke with scampo on charcoal  and crunchy quinoa.

Barbecue-Ravioli filled with suckling pig on bock beer creme, pointed cabbage bouillon and wild fennel.

Unfortunately I didn’t took any pic of it, but I especially loved the dessert with Raspberry Tapioka, grilled marshmallow and a safran-tamarind-macaron. Tasty!

All in all, the trip had already started very good with my first stop and I was wondering then if this even can get any better. Well, it did… but about the other days of my trip in my next posts.

P.S.: My top 3 songs from my roadtrip playlist:

• Su di noi – Pupo
• You belong to me – Bryan Adams (maybe the best one of his songs ever?)
• Mr. Jones – Counting Crows