Three countries in three hours

In case you haven't studied a map of Austria recently, Innsbruck is in the western part of Austria that is situated between Italy, Switzerland, and Germany (see Google Maps). Today we took a field trip to a convent that's listed as a UNSECO World Heritage site because of frescoes in the church that were painted in the 800s--around when Charlemagne was the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

On the way to convent, we first crossed into Switzerland so that we could see an ancient Roman toll booth that was built to charge merchants coming through the Reschen Pass (see map).


(The toll booth is kind of hard to see, but it's a square building on the other side of the covered bridge that crosses the river.)

Then we crossed into Italy and drove until a spot along the Lago di Resia where you can see a church steeple sticking out of the water. It's there because the valley was flooded when a dam was built between the two world wars, and flooded several villages. There's a small parking lot, and a spot where they explain what happened.



Next, we drove into Switzerland where we finally arrived at the convent. It was pretty inside and out, and I bought some raspberry liqueur made by the nuns in the gift shop.



On the way home we stopped in Glorenza (see map) for a coffee, which was neat because it's a walled medieval town, and the smallest officially incorporated town in South Tirol.



All the pictures can be seen here!

That's it for now! Tchuess!