At the very top, the view extends far beyond South Tyrol. © Sergio Marcos

Writing about northern Italy is associated with mixed feelings: Northern Italy is the country I left when I was 19 and to which I have returned regularly ever since. I have traveled the same route hundreds of times, from Vienna via Innsbruck over the Brenner Pass to Lana-Burgstall station. Here, I get off to return, here, I get on to leave the country again, sometimes happily, sometimes melancholically. So the platform is the most central place for me. It's an in-between place. Here, I have not yet arrived and not yet left.

I was here, in the in-between when I lived there, surrounded by the mountains, but with my thoughts long gone beyond the peaks, the train tracks as a place of longing. The in-between has remained unchanged, the station looks exactly the same as it always has, almost unchanged since it was built in 1881, the blue rain grows under the roof, and as soon as the next train arrives, the familiar voice rings out from the loudspeaker.

Promenades and palm trees, gardens and parks, castles and palaces and 300 days of sunshine a year - view of Merano. © cherryblossom / Alamy Stock Photo

When I come to northern Italy, I'm not a tourist, but I'm not "from here" either, I'm "from outside" and that means Vienna. In Vienna, I'm "one of us", but I'm not allowed to vote and "down below", meaning the regions of Italy, I'm "Italian, but somehow not". So I'm in the in-between wherever I go. When I come to northern Italy, it's perhaps with the intention of remembering those days that were still carefree, the days of my childhood.

I seek out the places that take me back: the buzzing of bees in June under my grandmother's cherry tree, the ice cream parlor and Sader pastry shop, which still serves the same ice cream flavors as it did 30 years ago. Every pastry shop in the world always reminds me of this one, the blue rain at the train station, the busy clattering of espresso cups at the gas station, the autostrada towards Jesolo, granita and cola ice cream at Lido Lana, the whirring of the chairlift up to the Vigiljoch.

As if time had stood still. The quiet places off the beaten track are the best. © Getty Images

They still exist, these places, they are rare tourist attractions and there are even more of them in summer than in winter. It's the crackling of roots on the way into the forest, the wooden footbridge on Lake Montiggl, the smell of spruce trees, the bite of a gadfly, the jump of a hayseed, the marsh marigolds in the meadow, the deckchairs on the Leadner Alm, the freshly sugared Kaiserschmarren, an anthill in the forest, the blue fingers of blueberries in August and, after rainy days, the glowing chanterelles in the moss.

School and tourism

© Emi Massmer Emotions

Hotel Emma is one of the most famous hotels in Merano. I went to school there, apparently postcards arrived with the address "To Mrs. Emma. Europe", so the legend goes. Northern Italy was already quite fashionable back then and Mrs. Emma was a luminary. The school, founded as a private school of the English Fräuleins, was a school for tourism and foreign languages, where I was taught business administration and tourism geography and my English was tested for suitability in a travel agency and the meaning of the colors in the northern Italian logo. "Genussland, Aktivland, Familienland" (land of bliss, land of experience, land of family) was the slogan I had to memorize for exams. For us, it was the epitome of boredom.

The third oldest cable car in Europe near Lana takes you up to the Vigiljoch at 1481 meters above sea level. © provided

As a teenager, we called Merano the "biggest retirement home in Europe" because there was nothing for us, no ten horses would have taken me up a mountain back then. In the meantime, I have come closer to the age of tourists, have rediscovered hiking for myself, appreciate the wide range of wellness hotels, a good glass of Vernatsch, the racing bike trails and summer concerts at Schloss Trauttmansdorf. Growing up in a tourist town sometimes means rediscovering beauty late in life.

Summer nights with zucchini flowers

© StockFood /Klaus-Maria

300 days of sunshine a year, another phrase from school, but that's actually what I miss the most, especially in winter when the sky in Vienna changes from one shade of gray to the next. Northern Italy can sometimes be incredibly kitschy when you walk along the Waalweg or Tappeinerweg, the view over the valley with its mountains and apple orchards, with palm trees and cypresses in between. I remember an evening at Ladritscher Hof near the Karer Pass, the Latemar glowing orange at dusk, while fresh trout sizzled on the barbecue with live music and a campfire. Or the view far over Merano while the best dishes are served at Gasthof Oberlechner, dandelion ravioli doughnuts or stuffed zucchini flowers, porcini mushroom tagliatelle and apricot dumplings.

The fusion between Austria and Italy is the best thing that could have happened to northern Italian cuisine. © provided

Add to this the summer nights, the wide starry skies, the cicadas that can now be heard more and more in northern Italy, and if you stand next to a cypress tree, you could really believe that you're much further south, in Tuscany. The in-between that has always characterized northern Italy has now become a trademark, the fusion between Austria and Italy is probably the best thing that could have happened to the cuisine and is being taken to the extreme by gourmet restaurants. But you don't necessarily need gourmet kitchens to eat well. It still tastes best in the most rustic wine cellars and wine taverns, which smell of must, wine barrels and smoked meats and where the tables are so big that you have to sit at the same table as the so-called "strangers" and possibly spend a particularly whimsical summer evening.

© provided

I had little enthusiasm for tourism at school, my favorite pastime was reading. I did this secretly under the school desk. I had pretty much professionalized it: reading a few lines, then looking at the blackboard with interest again. I mainly read Kafka, who spent three months at this very famous Hotel Emma in 1920, shortly after the end of the First World War and after northern Italy became part of Italy. My great-grandmother was born ten years earlier. She married my great-grandfather Gino in 1940, one year after northern Italy was given the "option": Hitler or Mussolini.

They hardly understood a word of each other's language back then, at least that's the story in my family. Allegedly, Gino cycled up the mountain road from Laives to Presule just to visit her. They got married before he had to enlist and go to Albania. She gave birth to their first child in his absence and sent him a lock of hair by field post. He didn't speak a word of German until the end, made fun of my nonna's dumpling rolling, but ate all her dumplings with passion and never left the house without kissing her goodbye.

The little things

The charming boutique hotel "Villa Verde" in Algund is a place to relax and enjoy. © provided

Lana, the place where I grew up, is a stronghold of literature; Sabine Gruber and Oswald Egger grew up there, who, together with Sepp Mall, Anita Pichler and Norbert C. Kaser, should have long been part of the canon of German-language literature. The best way to learn about northern Italy's history is from novels such as "Stillbach oder die Sehnsucht" by Sabine Gruber, which also tells of the German occupation of Italy between 1943 and 1945, or "Wundränder" by Sepp Mall, which tells of the trauma caused by the terrorism of the 1960s, while "Die Frauen aus Fanis" by Anita Pichler delves into the Ladin legends of the Dolomite region.

Books have always been my home, much more than any place or northern Italy could ever be. I used to go to Lana library every week to get new books. The library is now in the center of Lana, bigger, more beautiful, more opulent and definitely worth a visit (the ice cream parlor is not far away!). Whenever a thunderstorm came up in summer - it almost always moved out of the Ulten Valley to Lana - and when the rain poured down and beat against the windows, the bed was my little refuge where I devoured one book after another.

The impressive mountain panorama of the Dolomites radiates unbelievable peace and power. © Marilar Irastorza

The cherries have long since ripened and, like every year, I have missed them, but soon I will be on my way again, 615 kilometers to the south. As soon as I get off at the Brenner Pass, I'm always overcome with a little nostalgia and when I then take the train via Bolzano further up into the Adige Valley, the apple trees to my left and right, when I catch sight of my favorite mountain, the Gantkofel, which looks a bit like the end of the world, then I am happy to be back in the in-between.

© Unsplash

"Happiness is greatest when it is very small. That's why, if I had to write down my life, I would only write down little things," Franz Kafka says, and this is the closing line of the new film "The Glory of Life". Happiness is greatest when it is very small, and it's the little things that make it special, whether it is the flight of a falcon, the evening glow of the Latemar, the whistling of the marmots or freshly mown hay in your hair, a little piece of summer. 

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