We’re spending two ‘off-bike’ days in Bruneck as part of our Messner themed tour of the Dolomites and Alto Adige. Two of the six places that make up the Messner museums are in Bruneck , one right in town at Bruneck Castle and the other at the summit of the Kroneplatz ski area adjacent to Bruneck.
So the museums are the main reason we’re here, but after spending a few days here, it’s more than worth a visit on its own.
Each of the Messner museums has a particular theme related to the mountains. The two here, Ripa at the castle and Crones on the mountain top are focused on the people and cultures of the mountain regions and the history and development of mountaineering respectively. When choosing where to go first, we thought we’d take a ‘mountaineering’ approach and look at the weather forecasts. Today, Thursday, had rain forecast all day while tomorrow, Friday was mostly sunny with some clouds in the afternoon and no rain.
That made the decision pretty simple, it was the in town Castle today rather than a 2275 m high mountain top in the rain, and more likely …. snow.
We weren’t in too much of a hurry given our modest agenda for the day, and the fact that it was indeed raining steadily. The breakfast buffet at the Ander was very good and the breakfast room an oasis of calm, so that took up a good chunk of the morning, followed by some journal work.
That set us up for lunch. Our nephew Andrew, who spends a good portion of every winter around these parts (he’s a coach of the Canadian national Biathlon team) highly recommended we go to Der Keller for pizza, so we did. And he was right, fantastic pizzas in the cellar of a centuries old building, and it was pretty much packed out, a testament to its popularity and reputation. It was also situated right beside the walkway up to the castle, so that was up next.
Bruneck Caslte is situated in a commanding position atop a large hill on the edge of the old town. It’s been renovated over the past few decades to host the Ripa installation of the Messner Museum, with Ri Pa being Tibetan for Mountain (Ri) People (Pa). While on one level, the museum seems like a collection of artifacts collected from the many mountain communities and cultures throughout the world where Messner established his legendary status, there is an underlying theme, or philosophy that mountain cultures, i.e peoples who have lived for centuries or millennia in some cases, in mountain regions, have a far different relationship and outlook on these regions than the typical current ‘western view’ that these regions and environments are to be ‘protected’ in a seemingly static way, dictated by non-mountain ‘cultures’. I know I’m sounding pretty fuzzy and obtuse, but what he was getting at are that true mountain cultures are unique and they need to be respected and allowed to determine how their environments move forward.
With all that, it was a very cool place with some very interesting stuff. Spoken like a true philistine.
Moving on to something closer to our hearts …. our stomachs. Given our early afternoon pizza feast, we were looking for something a little lighter for dinner and we found it at VinSushi. Bruneck is two for two on the dinner score.
We’re looking forward to tomorrow where we’ll have a similarly relaxed morning (k’s booked massages for both of us mid-morning) and then a trip up to Kroneplatz and the Crones Messner museum
The breakfast room at the Ander is a very relaxing and peaceful environment, and the breakfast was very good too
Most of the installations were depicting how people lived in the many mountain communities alpinists like Messner travelled and climbed in. In this case, a Mongolian tent. Probably the most common thread in all the mountain communities was that of essentially raising livestock and the attendant semi nomadic lifestyle that entailed, Mongolia being a prime example.
So we then checked out various webcams for places we were just at or are heading too. First up was the Tre Cime, and once again we made the right decison to bail and come down to Bruneck a day sooner.
A hike around here would not be good. A few of the other webcams for passes that are in our plans were looking pretty dodgy too, but they are more than a week away and things can and do change rapidly at this time of year.
So staying focused on today …. Once again a very relaxed and good breakfast, a very much appreciated massage in the wonderful ‘wellness centre’ at the Ander, and then it was off to the Crones MMM at the top of Kroneplatz, 1400 m above us … just where the new snow was starting!
Kroneplatz ski station and the site of the Crones Messner Mountain Museum, some 1400 m above us.
And no, we didn’t ride or walk up. This is a ‘rest’ day. Gondola it was. Even though it was Friday, we were the only people on the gondola (in the time we were around both the base and the summit), and there were a handful, at most, of other people at the museum. It only opened for the season a week ago so we are definitely at the front end of the tourist season. That’s generally a good place to be.
The Crones MMR is focused on the pursuit of mountaineering and is in a quite amazing purpose built space (building just does not fit). Seen from the gondola station about 400 m away, the museum looks like just another rock outcrop, especially with the new fallen snow on the ground.
Walking closer to it reveals that it is in fact a human made structure that appears to sink into the mountain and then emerge as cliff bands lower down the slope.
Inside, it’s a walk through of the history of mountaineering in it’s pure form, of which Reinhold Messner is probably the most accomplished professional (although he goes to great lengths to give tribute to those who came before him and literally set trails for him).
Again on one level it’s a collection of what may seem odd artifacts, but there is a real coherence to this place and the space adds to much to the experience.
Deserves a bit of a zoom in, and the cantilevered glass structure is a small restaurant, AlpInn, that’s only open for lunch (the Gondola’s shut down at 16:45 and I don’t think anyone would be interested in walking down after an evening dinner)
Near the ‘Modern End’ of this exhibit were these Asolo rock boots …. I had the same pair … got them in 1978 when I was still doing some rock climbing. Cool to see them but also sobering to see some of your own stuff in a ‘Museum’
To top off another great day in Bruneck, we dined at b.Local, another extremely good restaurant here, that as the name suggests, is focused on local and very seasonal food.
Braised Oxtail with celeriac, leeks and sage. We ended up having the same wine we did two nights ago, Amistar Reserve, but a 2014 vintage rather than 2022. It aged nicely!
defies description - a deep fried nougat sphere with molten chocolate on a bed of straw wafers - I’ve probably completely butchered that - but it was good!
We had a wonderful couple of days here in Bruneck, and even the rain forced us to take it easy. All was going well until last evening when K received a number of odd e-mails from booking.com regarding an upcoming reservation. She tried to address them, to no avail and was quickly sliding into the vortex of doom.
This little ditty pulled her back. A perfect tonic for a happy life.
Don’t Worry, Be Happy by Bobby McFerrin, that good old classic from 1988.
