#10: [20-Jun-24]

#7: [19-Jul-14]

#6: [15-Sep-13]

#5: [23-Aug-12]

#4: [12-Sep-10]

#3: [23-May-08]

#2: [02-Oct-04]

#9: [29-Oct-17]

#8: [14-Nov-04] (incomplete)

01-Apr-2001 -- When I was a child, in the late sixties, some of my father´s friends told us to cancel an intended vacation in Italy, because of the troubles going on in South Tyrol.

We made the trip anyhow, expierencing friendly people and hospitality, no doubt we were welcomed.

It´s always the same story: few fanatics on both sides don´t listen to each other anymore, trying to poisen the minds of the other 99.9% who want to live together as good neighbours.

Why this historical retrospect ? Well, since then I visited South Tyrol several times, feeling at home more and more.

And while climbing up the hillsides of the Ahrntal / Valle di Aurino after visiting 47N012E, leaving all that struggle, jealousy and fanatics down there, leaving the 5000 ft mark behind me, I start understanding the meaning of the word "World-Citizen".

I take a deep breath, look back to the valley, look at the great scene around me. It´s so peaceful up here, the "ant hill" down there could be on Mars as well ..... This is our planet, so let's freight the trouble-makers to Mars and make them fight it out themselves ....

OK, here the confluence´s facts:

This was an easy one, but only after the preparations for the actual visit!

At the beginning, it wasn´t even clear, whether the intersection is located in the Ahrntal or a valley next to it. The spot could be on the valley floor or at the top of a 2500 m (8200 ft) mountain as well.

Spent at least some two hours in the WWW and on my computer, collecting maps and information, combining road maps and topographical ones together, making this computations in three ways different to each other in order to verify the results.

Finally, I fixed the confluence within a few hundred meters east-northeast a small village called Steinhaus / Cadipietra, just off a major road numbered 621, some 1200m (4000 ft) above sealevel.

And Steinhaus, or the Ahrntal itself, is well known to mountain bikers, snowboarders and hikers as a starting point for tours into a Picture-Postcard-Alpine-Dreamland (and that´s no overstatement, see photo!).

So, grabbed my GPS and my Digicam, jumped into my car and - YoHo, to Bel Air! - off I was ....

Driving from Innsbruck via Brixen / Bressanone and Bruneck / Brunico, I left the car at the parking place for a cable railway in Steinhaus, walked some 2 km ( 1.2 mi ) upstream the Ahrn / Aurino till I reached the 012E-Line. Turned south and climbed up the hillside till I reached the confluence.

"Brother Tree" already was there, and he brought a lot of his mates to dinner ....

c ya
Mike ;-)