Italy
Altopiano del Renon
Boulder-capped clay towers spike out of the pines, the tallest earth pyramids in Europe.
The earth pyramids appear through the pines like hooded figures, slender columns of glacial clay each balancing a boulder on its head. Above Bolzano, the Renon plateau rolls out in orchards, hay meadows and villages that answer in German first.
The Renon, Ritten in German, is reached from Bolzano by cable car, and a narrow-gauge railway has trundled between its villages since 1907, the last of its kind in South Tyrol. Its earth pyramids at Lengmoos, Oberbozen and Unterinn are the tallest in Europe, columns of moraine clay that survive only while their capstones shield the soft material from rain. Buschenschank farmhouses pour their own wine beside plates of speck, and in autumn the Törggelen season fills their parlours with roast chestnuts. Across the valley, the Dolomites hold the horizon in three directions.
Family
Cable car up, vintage train across, strange clay towers at the end: the plateau is South Tyrol scaled for children.
Couple
Afternoon wine at a Buschenschank with the Dolomites in the window, then an evening walk while the pyramids go gold.
Friends
Ride the little train between villages and stop at every farmhouse pour along the way; nobody expects the Renon and everyone remembers it.
- The narrow-gauge Renon railway has run since 1907 and is the last of its kind in South Tyrol.
- The earth pyramids at Lengmoos, Oberbozen and Unterinn are the tallest in Europe.
- A cable car lifts you from Bolzano's centre onto the plateau, no car required.
- In autumn, Törggelen turns the farm parlours into chestnut and new-wine feasts.
Speck cured with mountain herbs and cold smoke is carved at Buschenschank tables with dark bread.
During Törggelen, roast chestnuts and the year's new wine take over every farm parlour on the plateau.
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