I’m 7,500ft up a mountain in Italy’s South Tyrol near the Austrian border, and my legs feel like rubber bands – if you first stretched those rubber bands to the moon, and then set them on fire.
When I decided to spend a long weekend hiking these hills, I knew it would be a challenge. I hadn’t imagined I’d be panting like an obscene phone-caller halfway through the second day.
The Venosta High Alpine Trail, which snakes 67 miles through the Vinschgau mountains, normally takes nearly a week to complete. A quartet of companions and I are sampling some of its most scenic stretches, hiking up to 12 miles a day between pine-panelled lodges, where we bunk each night.
SPITZIGE LUN
This morning, we’ve deviated from the official trail to “bag a peak” – the grassy green Spitzige Lun. Even trees can’t be bothered to grow as far up as the bulbous pinnacle, which punctuates the blue alpine sky at 7,624ft. The trail markers nearest the top, which resemble headstones slashed with red and white paint, aren’t particularly encouraging.
Why would any reasonably sane person take on this arduous South Tyrolian trail, you might ask? Well, I’ve always appreciated the outdoors. I’d rather walk for hours in the open air than suffer 10 minutes on a treadmill. Furthermore, putting one foot in front of the other is the only form of exercise I’m co-ordinated enough to undertake – unless you count lifting a pint at my local pub.
Lately, though, I’ve been either too busy, too tired or, if I’m honest, too lazy to rise early on a Saturday morning for a full day of walking with my hiking group, as I once did. But I’ve missed those bucolic panoramas and the sense of camaraderie you build when soldiering along a difficult route, and I hope that testing my limits in South Tyrol will reignite my resolve to hoof it in the hills.
So for three days, I turn off the anxious hum of my brain and listen to the natural melodies of Italy’s mountains: birdsong, the buzzing of bees, the wind in the trees and the intermittent cacophony of cowbells. (Poor bovines, they must think they have a terrible case of tinnitus).
I trade skyscrapers for evergreen forests, exchange rain-drenched concrete for rushing streams and swap littered pavements for fields of wildflowers and mysterious medicinal plants, which our soft-spoken guide, Christian Gapp, points out along the way.
“This is frauenmantel,” says Christian, kneeling beside a patch of short, fat leaves rimmed with drops of moisture. “What’s it for?” I ask. He averts his eyes, a blush turning his sun-bronzed face a deeper shade of red, and mumbles something about “women’s troubles”.
The plants beside the path provide many moments of levity, especially as we grow giddy in the thin Alpine air. Wispy grey-green moss from a fir tree is transformed into a comedy moustache and, when we discover that buttercups are known as “bastard-hahnenfuss”, we snicker like schoolchildren at the notion of presenting your mum with a bouquet of these.
There’s something about stretching your legs that loosens your tongue. Over strenuous hours sweating alongside my fellow-hikers, we swap stories about partners and parents, work and colleagues, and the increasing difficulty of staying in shape as we get older. One woman swears by her spinning class; another says there’s nothing like yoga for slimming her bum. Even one of the two men in our group – a spry veteran skier who looks a decade younger than his 45 years – admits he’s started to keep track of his alcohol units.
We nod and issue a collective sigh, trying not to dwell upon the copious glasses of local wine with which we washed down the gourmet fare that’s served in even the most modest accommodation. While German is the main language in South Tyrol, the meals have a distinctly Italian flair. So forget schnitzel and sauerkraut; here, it’s all cheesy risottos, pasta with truffles and mouth-watering chocolate mousse.
SNOW-CAPPED MOUNTAINS
But my most memorable nibble is a simple ham-and-cheese sandwich savoured atop the Spitzige Lun, which we finally reach after two-and-a-half hours of unrelenting ascent. A tall cross marks the summit, silhouetted against a backdrop of snow-capped mountains, and a small group of cairns, to which each hiker adds a stone, tops a bluff behind us. The grass is soft beneath our bottoms (yoga-toned and otherwise) and the air is fresh in our lungs.
The next day, we descend through a sun-dappled forest and transfer to Merano, where we spend an evening soaking our sore limbs at the Terme Spa in the city centre. With 25 pools, ranging from a chilly 18 degrees to a toasty 37-degree whirlpool that bubbles like prosecco, everyone is certain to find their bliss.
We’ve definitely earned it. The skier’s right knee is shot, one woman’s toes are swaddled in plasters, another’s left shoe has come unglued and my legs creak and burn like dry timber. The only member of our tribe who seems to have emerged unscathed is a triathlete. If I didn’t ache so badly, I’d throttle him.
But, as they say, “it’s only a flesh wound”. Within a week, we’ll be healed (even the shoe, thanks to a squirt of glue) and all that will remain are memories of white peaks, green fields and a lasting sense of accomplishment.
My hiking boots are officially out of mothballs and I’m ready to hit the trail again.
Inghams tour company offers hiking packages from May-September. From £929 per person, including four nights’ accommodation on the Venosta Valley Walking trail, three days’ hiking with a guide, free transport of luggage between accommodation, followed by three nights at the three-star Hotel Salgart in Merano, on a half-board basis, and round-trip flights from London Gatwick to Verona. www.inghams.co.uk; telephone: 01483 791114. South Tyrol tourism info: www.suedtirol.info