Monte Bondone

Apparently five days was long enough for Tim to stay cooped up inside with his broken hand.  Oh, and the incessant rain stopped.  And it was a beautiful day.  So he decided to drive over to Monte Bondone for a walk in the forest.  He said it was nice.

Amy came across this page: http://trentinoaltoadige4kids.blogspot.com/, which has a ton of really great information about lots of things to do in our backyard.  Let's see how many of them we can pack into the next month...

Broken

Tim's hand is officially broken.  His Italian basketball career was two weeks long.  On the second outing, something happened to his hand.  It hit the ball or a person, or something, and it came home enormously swollen.  This was last Thursday.  He waited through the weekend, hoping the swelling would go down, but it didn't.  So this morning, he went to the hospital for an x-ray.  Luckily, Amy was available to go with him and help him with the (significant) language barrier.  Here's the story I've pieced together from both of their versions.

Amy picked Tim up and took him to the hospital so he would know where to go and what to do.  They got all checked in and saw the doctor initially within about a half an hour.  The doctor (who spoke only Italian) apparently took one look at Tim's hand and said "It's definitely broken."  Then he started poking around asking Tim if different things he did hurt.  "No."  Amy encouraged Tim to be honest with the doctor and really tell him if it hurt.  Tim insisted that it didn't.  So the doctor decided that it couldn't possibly be broken since it didn't hurt enough.  (Sound familiar?)  And sent him for x-rays.  Amy stayed with him through the x-rays and tried to wait even longer but finally had to take off for a meeting.  The doctor called Tim back again to tell him that his hand was, in fact, broken.  In two places.  So they proceeded to put a cast on it, followed by another x-ray to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be.  He has to make an appointment to go back in 10 days for another x-ray.  And then they expect to be able to take the cast off in about four weeks (just perfect timing for him to be able to help with the luggage on the way home).

Merano

Saturday, we decided to check out Merano, a resort town that's about an hour's drive from Trento.  We slept in (purely by accident, but who's going to argue) and headed out around 11am.  We got there and scouted out a cute little restaurant for a delicious lunch.  I think it must be the "low season" in Merano right now, though the streets were packed with people in the afternoon. We did a little wandering and shopping, went into the church, then decided to hop in the car and check out Tirolo, a little town up the hill from Merano.  There were all kinds of walking paths and castles and nice views from up there.  Tim and Maya opted to walk on back down the hill to Merano (2.7km as the crow flies... who knows how long their windy path was...), while I took the car back down.  I walked partway up to meet them, then we grabbed dinner at a little pizzeria (not very much was open, though the pizzeria was PACKED).  Maya was sacked out in the car before we got on the highway.

Yes those are palm trees. And yes that's a heron.  And, for the record, I took this first picture of Maya.

The Chestnut Trail

Tim also headed back up to Sardagna to try out the chestnut trail now that it's chestnut season (and now that he doesn't have to tow me and Maya around...).  He said he didn't get very many good pictures.  I found a few that were great.