Reschensee

Maya has been learning about the Fiume Adige in school. (An aside: it's actually kind of cool... they're doing a local themed approach to geography this year, using the Adige river, which runs right through Trento, to learn about the geography of the region. This is one of the reasons they visited Bolzano earlier in the year, and one of the reasons they'll visit Verona later in the year.) Anyway, it turns out that the source of the Adige is near the Reschen Pass (yes, that word looks German; yes, so did most of the words on the signs in this part of the country). Very early in its travels, the Adige flows through an artificial (dammed) lake called Reschensee (Lake Reschen). In Maya's lessons, they learn about a fish (I forget the fish's name) who starts up at the source and travels down along the Adige, learning about the places she passes along the way. So on Sunday, we (accompanied by Milena) trekked in the opposite direction, following the Adige north out of Trento, to Bolzano, through Merano (where we stopped to wander the wonderful Mercatino di Natale and have some pretzels), and on up the valley to Reschensee. It was fun to attempt to spot the Adige out of the window of the car:

Mom: "Look! The Adige!"

Maya/Milena: "Where?"

Mom: "Well, over there. You can't really see it well. But it's down in that valley."

Dad: "What about that medieval castle right in front of us? Isn't it more impressive?"

Everyone else: "Oh, I guess."

Eventually (around 3:30), we made our way to Reschensee. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, following a plan begun around 1920, the valley was flooded using the Adige to create a hydroelectric power plant and supply energy. There's a detailed exhibit at the lake blaming the fascist government for "The Tragedy Behind the Reschen Reservoir." Basically, the government decided that there'd be a lake, a larger lake than originally planned, and, no, they didn't see what the problem was with the two towns and several hamlets located in the valley being placed underwater. So they were. Oh, and the government didn't have enough money to actually build this dam, so the venture was backed by a Swiss electric company in exchange for ten years' worth of seasonal electricity. All that remains visible of the submerged towns is a church steeple rising out of the lake. When the lake is frozen, you can apparently walk out to the steeple on the ice. It wasn't frozen (enough) for us to do this. However, the kids did get a really big kick out of tossing rocks onto the lake to (1) hear the "plink plink" sound and (2) determine how big of a rock was necessary to break the ice. Tim enjoyed skipping rocks across the ice to see if he could get them as far as the steeple.

The kids also enjoyed walking on the bits of ice on the shore. All three of them fell down. Cora seemed quite surprised (and a bit offended) by the nature of slippery ground.

After taking in the views of the lake, steeple, and surrounding mountains, we stopped by the slightly more southern and a bit smaller lake adjacent to Reschensee (no, I won't give you it's name; it's long and unimportant in this context). This lake was more frozen over (there were actually people ice skating and playing ice hockey on the lake). The girls wanted to actually stand on the frozen lake. So they did. I want to reiterate that this lake was not COMPLETELY frozen over, so if one was too adventurous and/or had no idea where the "thin spots" were, this would be a cold adventure. We didn't venture far from the shore at all.