Hello everyone! It was a terrible month of November, this November of 2019; floods, high water in Venice, landslides, devastated territories, flooded rivers, collapsed viaducts. Many people's lives have been turned upside down, and some have lost their lives, or have seen their homes and businesses destroyed. So what can an accessible tourism blog do in the face of such a disaster? We decided to retrace our August 2016 holiday in Val Pusteria, one of the most important South Tyrolean valleys, severely hit by this month's bad weather; at the time we visited it with our friends Carla and Roberto, based in a hotel in Brunico and traveling by car, on a completely self-organized tour. Let's say right away that Val Pusteria can be reached easily with the A22 Brenner motorway, exiting at Bressanone and taking the SS 49 which runs through the entire valley as far as Austria. We will show the images collected in this intense week, as a testimony of the beauty of the area and the many possibilities to visit it even for people with motor disabilities. Let's start with Brunico, founded in 1252 in the Rienza river valley by the bishop of Bressanone and developed as a fortress-city around the castle. The River Rienza, with a convenient pedestrian promenade:
the Via Centrale:
By cable car to Plan de Corones:
the Messner Mountain Museum:
an assortment of local sweets:
The first side valley of the Val Pusteria we visited is the Anterselva Valley, at the end of which there is a beautiful lake, Lake Anterselva of course:
Continuing along the SS 49, the last town before the Austrian border is San Candido, a lively town rich in history:
the Parish of San Michele:
the thirteenth-century Collegiata of SS. Candide and Corbinian:
Another important deviation from the SS 49 is the one that leads to Val di Tures and subsequently to Valle Aurina; arrived as far as possible by car, we then set off on a beautiful white road parallel to the course of the Aurino stream, covering it for a good distance. Some images, starting with the Church of the Holy Spirit. Consecrated in 1455 by the bishop-count of Bressanone, it is surrounded by boulders that serve to protect it from avalanches; if a pilgrim then passed through a crack between two of these boulders crawling to the walls, popular belief wanted him to get rid of his sins:
And we close this incomplete tour of the Val Pusteria with another deviation from the SS 49 that takes us to Lake Braies. This beautiful body of water has become famous throughout Italy thanks to the fiction "A step from the sky"; as far as those traveling in wheelchairs are concerned, the circumlacual path is practicable up to a certain point, but it is still a splendid walk:
What to say in conclusion? We hope to have been able to show, to those who did not yet know it, the beauty of Val Pusteria and to what extent this beauty is accessible to those who, like us, move in a wheelchair. Going even further back in the years we could find some other beautiful experiences in South Tyrol; we are however available to friends who would like to publish something with us, especially if they were South Tyrolean friends, among whom we know there are some of our most faithful readers.