Malga Bocche

Lovely day and perfect for as walk in the mountains. Up and away for the campsite by 8am, probably a new record for us (!) and down to Moena, around a 20 minute drive from our campsite in Campestrin, to catch a gondola at Alpe Luisa. Gondola ride, 32 euro for the family, which I thought was pretty decent given where it got you high in the mountains.

We were in a group of probably 9 people, and the only English speaking but luckily our guide, Tony we think his name was, spoke just enough to translate the key points. Which actually was brilliant. Over the 2 hour walk we learnt about the natural parks, the mountains and some of the geology, some of the ants and animals, and finally when we got to the dairy farm, some of the workings. All very fascinating … such as ..

In the park, people obviously live and work, but there is no hunting, fishing, or mushroom collecting allowed, expect, residents can collect up to 2kg of mushrooms a day. Think Porcina, yum! In fact, it’s law in the region that anybody can collect no more than 2kg per day, and some porcina weight 1 kg …

And the farm, Magla Bocche. Well, they normally bring the cows up around the forts week in June, but this year’s it’s been late due to the cold, too much snow, and not enough grass. The 40 cows on the farm roam the pastures by day, and night, and are milked as at home night and morning. The best cows will produce 45 liters of milk per day. It took a bit of effort to see what they did with the milk, but each evening a small tanker drives the mountains’ dirt roads to collect it, and they also use some to make cheese, milk, cream and yogurt for their restaurant. Which we tasted, very nice!

While the operation is all very low tech on appearance, they do actually have semi-automated milking, all the cows are chipped which allows measurement of production etc, which then contributes to the breeding program, only the best producers are bred. So on one level, it looks very simple agriculture and small scale, an impossibly inefficient. But on the other hand, they appear to be rather modern in the approach. Interesting.

Regardless, it’s hard to imagine with this amount of infrastructure and effort how they can make money. Maybe it doesn’t, we didn’t actually find out, but clearly the restaurant part of the business is booming. It’s a popular lunch and drink stop for day trippers, and today being Friday it was packed. Which I commented on to the guide, who laughed and said this wasn’t busy at all, wait until August … Hmmm.

Ate a very hearty lunch we skipped desert and headed f early, Hannah complaining of being tired and sick (which miraculously cleared up later) and tomorrow we probably do have a big day on the via Ferrata (weather permitting).

Back the camp, much organization for tomorrow, and early dinner and early to bed. Let’s hope the threat of rain tomorrow holds off … could make it interesting!