Italy Road Trip Day 6: No Room at the Inn

Read More of My Italy Road Trip:

Introduction: Road Trip Though Italy
Italy Road Trip Day 1: Roaming Around Rome
Italy Road Trip Day 2: A Lunch to Remember
Italy Road Trip Day 3: Italian Happy Hour
Italy Road Trip Day 4: Weekend Respite in Milano
Italy Road Trip Day 5: Exploring Milan By Foot
Italy Road Trip Day 6: No Room at the Inn

I woke up really missing my wife Heidi.

Not that I didn’t miss her every day I am away, but when I woke up alone and saw the other side of the bed untouched, it brought a touch of regret that my career requires extended periods away from home. Sure, I use FaceTime every day to speak to her and my son, but it is just not the same.

But the show had to go on.

My colleague informed me that our first meeting had been cancelled. While I hated to miss the meeting after coming all the way to Italy, that left us the morning to remain at the hotel and prepare for our final two meetings.

We left the hotel at noon to make the three-hour drive northeast to Montebelluna, a charming town north of Venice. Traffic was fairly light and we made it to our meeting on-time.

After stopping for coffee and a light snack at a roadside gas station, we continued north to our next meeting, another three hour drive that took us nearly up to the Austrian border to a town called Dobbiaco.

Despite rain, the drive was beautiful and we soon hit an altitude that still had a healthy amount of snow on the ground. These pictures are from Cortina:

No Room in the Inn

As usual, we winged it with a hotel. That proved to be more difficult this evening. The first hotel we visited was closed. Even though hotels.com indicated there were rooms available, it looked like the hotel was still closed for the season.

We headed further into town and stopped in front of another inn that had lights on. I ventured inside, but saw no one. I peaked into the restaurant and bar. No one. Finally, I rang the bell at the front desk. No one. After about 10 minutes of waiting, we continued our search.

The next hotel looked like a beautiful lodge and was certainly open. Unfortunately, however, there was no rooms available. The lodge was fully booked.

I just laughed, but my colleague was starting to get worried.

“Are we just going to sleep in the car tonight?”

I told him to relax.

Our fourth stop proved fruitful. The Hotel Rosengarten had plenty of rooms left and we were able to secure rooms for 45EUR/each.

The hotel felt so German/Austrian to me. Everything about the city did, actually. More on that below.

My room was huge: it had a giant table and two beds. Fast wi-fi too. My colleague’s room was not quite as big, but also big enough to have shared if we wanted to.

The German Language!

One thing I love about this area of Italy Is that everyone speaks German. Truthfully, this area feels much more like you are in Austria or Germany than in Italy. Historically, this area was part of Austria until after World War I.

I cannot tell you how comforting it was to be able to speak the language once again. Certainly I know about 20 words of Italian, but the week in Italy had included many difficult encounters in terms of communication. Here was no problem. In fact, German appeared to be the primary language and Italian secondary.

The owner of the inn recommended a place called the Winkelkeller for dinner, which turned out to be a great suggestion. Service began with a delicious assortment of bread. I chose green ravioli for my first course and lamb for my second course. The food was incredibly fresh and the presentation also beautiful.

I could not resist a bowl of ice cream with Waldfrucht (berries) for dessert along with a cappuccino (hey, Austrians/Germans drink cappuccinos after dinner…this wasn’t Milan or Rome!).

Returning to the hotel, I had no trouble quickly falling asleep. Tomorrow would be my last Italy!