It may be Italy`s best-kept secret-at least for Americans.
Wave upon wave of towering, crennelated Alpine peaks break over narrow troughs of fir-lined valleys. Tiny villages, cozily resplendent with geranium- decked chalets, strudel-scented bakeries and onion-domed churches, nestle between mountain slopes so steep that grazing cows and goats look as if they might topple off.
Slender roads, twisting along rocky torrents, offer, at every bend, the possibility of a medieval castle or a delicately carved wooden shrine adorned with fresh flowers.
Restaurants, with their warm, wood-lined dining-rooms, or stube, are more apt to list their meat or vegetable-stuffed dumplings as Knodeln than gnocchi, but their guests will be as likely to speak Italian as German, or even Ladin, the ancient language of the region`s earliest inhabitants.
Hidden away in a maze of valleys, protected by the rosy fortress of the Dolomites, the South Tyrol, as it is known by German speakers, or Alto Adige, as the Italians call it, is Italy`s northernmost province. Stretching from the glaciers and edelweiss in its Alpine north to vineyards and olives at its southern border, the province covers 2,857 square miles.
Although it lives under the Italian flag, the province clearly evokes the look and flavor of the neighboring Austrian Tyrol, to which it belonged from the 14th Century which it belonged from the 14th Century until 1918, when it was ceded to Italy after World War I.
Part of the Trentino-Alto Adige administrative region, the Alpine province preserves a small, trilingual world of magnificent natural beauty, superb skiing, fine wines and strong traditions as yet undiscovered by most Americans.
Almost as rare as litter and high-rises in the South Tyrol, Americans represent only the tiniest fraction of its 5.3 million annual visitors.
About 60 percent come from Germany, and the attraction is clear. For Germans, the South Tyrol offers not only proximity, but also the allure of a foreign vacation without the problems of coping with a foreign language or cuisine; the region`s food represents a fortifying meld of German, Italian and hearty Alpine traditions.
Thirty percent of the tourists come from elsewhere in Italy, with the balance arriving primarily from Switzerland, Austria and the Benelux countries.
”Maybe 0.1 percent are Americans,” said Hansjorg Dariz, director of the Bolzano-based South Tyrolean Hotel and Restaurant Association. ”Most Americans don`t know about the beauty of the country. The South Tyrol doesn`t mean anything to them.”
Perhaps not, but the region, with its long and complicated history, means a great deal to the Tyroleans-so much so that in recent years some have fought for it to the point of violence.
A people called Rhaetians by the Romans were the earliest recorded inhabitants of the region, which has been inhabited since at least the Bronze Age. By 15 B.C., the Rhaetians had been absorbed into the Roman Empire and, over the next 500 years, found themselves and their language ”Romanized.”
Subsequent barbarian invasions from the north, however, transformed the South Tyrol into an almost entirely German-speaking region by the end of the 6th Century. Despite this, the indigenous people, by then known as Rhaeto-Romanic, stubbornly preserved some of their language and culture.
After centuries of see-sawing between various rulers, the region finally came into the Hapsburg Empire in 1363 and remained under Austrian rule until 1918, when it was given to Italy.
This sudden and sometimes brutally enforced change in nationality shocked the tradition-minded German-speaking South Tyrolese, who still comprise 69 percent of the region`s population of 440,000.
Under the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, this bitterness deepened. Mussolini launched a massive program of ”Italianizing” the region, which imported Italian settlers and industries and sought to eradicate any trace of Austrian influence.
The German language was forbidden. ”My mother had to learn German in the wine cellars,” recalled Dariz.
The insult of this denationalization program remains embodied in the triumphal arch, erected by the Fascists, that stands in the predominantly Italian provincial capital of Bolzano. Straddling the river separating the picturesque old town from the new sector built in the colorless, hard-edged Fascist style, the monument bears an arrogant Latin inscription to the effect that Italy civilized the local population through language, laws and arts.
Since the region has been controlled by Italy, various separatist groups in the province have agitated for either automony or a return to Austrian rule. Since 1957 this desire sometimes has been underscored through bombings, usually claimed by or attributed to German-speaking extremists.
Through a long, painful and ongoing series of legal steps, beginning with the Paris Agreement of 1946, German speakers officially have been accorded parity with Italian speakers, who make up 27 percent of the province, in terms of opportunity for employment and representation in public bodies, such as the courts and the legislature. Bilingualism, taught in the schools, is a requirement for provincial public sector jobs.
Public signs, such as place names, typically appear in the two languages; the capital of the province is Bolzano to the Italians and Bozen to their German-speaking neighbors. Sometimes signs appear in yet a third lanugage:
Ladin. For instance, one village, noted for its woodworking, is identified variously as: Ortisei, St. Ulrich and Urtijei, the last being its Ladin designation. The smallest minority in the South Tyrol, representing about 4 percent of the population, the Ladins are the descendants of the original Rhaetians, grouped primarily in five valleys-the Val Gardena, Val Badia, Val di Fassa, Livinallongo and Cortina d`Ampezzo-the region`s some 18,000 Ladins speak a language that looks and sounds like a blend of French and Latin.
Kept alive, in part, by the long isolation of the Alpine valleys, the Ladin language, after being disparaged for many years by German and Italian speakers, is now the province`s third official language. It is taught in the schools serving the Ladin community, along with German and Italian, and can be heard on regular broadcasts on the state-owned radio and television network.
Ladin, which has a longer history as a spoken language than as a written one, is still developing a codified grammar and syntax, according to Lois Craffonara, director of the Ladin Institute in the village of San Martino in Badia.
The institute, and others like it in the region, encourages the preservation of Ladin culture, costume and arts, such as woodworking. Originally adopted by Ladin farmers, mountaineers and woodsmen to while away the long winters, this woodcarving skill can be seen in the toys, musical instruments, sacred statues and charmingly painted furniture sold in many Tyrolean shops.
Tourism has been a factor in the South Tyrol since the Romans first were lured to its thermal springs. It began in earnest, however, in 1867 when the province became linked to European rail service through the Brenner Pass.
Americans, however, haven`t been drawn to the South Tyrol for several reasons, says Hansjorg Dariz. For starters, he says, few Americans even know the region exists, let alone that it is in Italy. When Americans think of the Tyrol, he said, they think of Austria.
Until recently, according to Dariz, regional authorities have done little to promote the region but greater efforts are under way, spurred by the desire to attract a greater diversity of visitors. ”Economically speaking, I think it`s very dangerous to depend on one market for 60 percent of your business,” he said, referring to the German contingent.
Price is not the major problem in drawing more Americans, Dariz speculates. Although the South Tyrol-crisscrossed by hundreds of cable-car lines and ski lifts and laced with more than 500 miles of Alpine ski runs and 1,000 miles of cross-country trails-is by no means an inexpensive ski destination, it is generally less pricey than Swiss and Austrian locales offering similar facilities.
But the South Tyrol is not as convenient. The closest airports are in Milan and Verona in Italy and Innsbruck in Austria. From these airports, the journey to the South Tyrol can be made either by car or a train ride of anywhere from an hour (from Innsbruck) to at least three hours (from Milan) to the provincial capital of Bolzano. Depending on the final destination, more train or car travel is required. And driving in the South Tyrol, especially on narrow roads that cling to the Alpine mountainsides, is not for the fainthearted; it is breathtaking in every sense of the word.
Once you`ve arrived, you may find it difficult to find a place to stay unless you`ve made reservations. Although the region offers some 5,000 hotels and guest houses ranging from moderate to luxury prices, they tend to be small, with only about 100 of them featuring more than 100 rooms, Dariz says. Moreover, for environmental reasons, 10 years ago the province imposed a moratorium on an increase of guest beds.
This translates into the need to make extremely early bookings. Particularly for the Christmas to Easter winter ski season and the June to October period, which is a heavy draw for hikers, rock climbers and other summer sports enthusiasts, reservations are recommended six months in advance. ———-
For further information, contact the South Tyrolean Provincial Tourist Office, Pfarrplatz 11-12, 39100 Bozen (Bolzano), Italy, or the Italian Government Travel Office, 500 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 1046, Chicago, Ill. 60611; 312-644-0990.
