Sudtirol

Yes. I am in Italy.
I’m in a beautiful but seriously dripping Italian spa town not far from Trento. The town of Levico Terme. 

There are three provinces of the Sudtirol, of which one is in Austria and the other two were made part of Italy. The full name of Trentino is “Trentino Alto Adige Sudtirol”. 

 Last time, I visited the other one that’s part of Italy, where very few people greeted you in a language other than German. Here, in the most southerly one, Trentino. You’re more likely to be greeted in Italian.

Wonderful pasta here, and, as you can see from my blip, lots of terrific meats and salami. 

There’s a very troubled and violent past behind the handing of the provinces to Italy of which I was totally unaware on my first visit. 
It’s a wonderful and intriguing part of the world and I’m delighted to be back.

It’s very wet today. I opted not to take the trip to Verona, which I’ve visited before, and explore the town. I still went out and it was worth being totally soaked to the skin. As I splashed back to the hotel, a lovely nonna shouted at me for not having an umbrella (I had a raincoat with a hood) but it wouldn’t have made any difference.

The park is beautiful. The views, if they were visible through the rain clouds, are splendid. The church is gorgeous (but no lights on), and there’s interesting street art, also dripping.

I’ve come back to the hotel to dry out before venturing back out to explore further.

The Hotel is rather unusual.
There’s a notice in your room that suggests you make sure all the towels are present as you’ll be charged if any go missing.
There’s another notice telling you that if they change a towel it’s an additional 5€ , and an additional 10€ if they change the sheets.
A member of our group cannot have gluten and they were going to charge an extra supplement of 5€ for each breakfast. (She’s just said she won’t eat the bread)
On the door to the breakfast room there’s a notice saying that they will be charging 4€ an item if food is taken out of the buffet.

It’s called the Hotel Liberty ! The phrase “taking liberties” does spring to mind……