Merano, Italy. Day 2

Today was a free day in Merano, Italy. We figured we would leave the bikes parked at the hotel and do some sightseeing, which includes a church built in the 12th century and palace built around the same time.

But first we needed to do laundry since we were out of clothes. Our hotel concierge put two marks on a map of the laundry in the city of we loaded up a few bags and set off. Next the laundromat was a washing machine dealer who had a sign that the store was closed for the month. Evidently over here they work live and not the other way around like in the US.

We tried to figure out how to work the machines since everything was in Italian, which was fun. We ended up looking like monkeys pushing buttons until something moved. We did get "green and clean" detergent so I feel better that we're environmentally conscious even on vacation.

We finished up with the laundry, headed back the hotel to put everything away and head out.

We walked uptown to "old Merano" which consisted of shop after shop after shop of high end apparel and everything else you could imagine. Prada, Gucci, etc. were all represented. We walked around and stopped and had gelato and sat by the river and people watched for a few minutes. We found a medieval entrance to the city, took some pictures and walked back into town for... Beers at a sidewalk cafe! After a few glasses of Forst (the "local") beer we went to a shop and I bought an Itilia soccer jersey and we headed back to the hotel.

After a brief rest, we decided to walk down to the hotel that we were originally going to stay at and have some more Italian food. The restaurant was about 3km away so it gave us a chance to work off some of the beers we had been consuming. On the way down we found a tiny shop with an Itilia tshirt (what I really wanted to get - it's legal because I'm 1/4 Itilian) for only 10€. Quite a deal. We bought the shirt and continued on for dinner.

I had a pasta with artichoke hearts and shrimp and Ken had a clam rissuecttio and this time we had a few glasses of wine. You can't come to Italy and not try the wine.

We continued back and decided we wanted some more gelato to negate the walking so we walked back to the center square and I had the best stuff ever - magala which was like a rum rasin esq. That was good eats. We walked by the Therme Merano which was 30 pools heated by hot springs. The building was beautiful and like all things pretty, expensive. Also, in the brochure it says "your attention is drawn to the fact that bathing costumes are not worn in the sauna.". Perfect.

We walked back to the hotel, grabbed a quick shower and are going to bed.

Tomorrow we'll embark for Austria.

Gratzi y Ciao!