We spent four lovely days in Northern Italy in the province called South Tirol or Südtirol in German or Alto Adige in Italian.  Even if it is located in Italy, practically everyone spoke German, and all signs and place names were both in Italian and German.

It took us one whole day (12 hours)  to get there and back: first a Flixbus to Turin (Torino), then train to Verona, another train to Fortezza (Franzensfeste), and finally one more train to Brunico (Bruneck), where we stayed. We made daily trips to Anterselva (Antholz) to watch  biathlon world cup races: women’s and men’s sprints, pursuits, and mass starts. This also required some travelling: first a local train to Olang (Valdaora) station where we took Shuttle B to Anterselva di Mezzo (Antholz Mittertal), and finally Shuttle A near the Biathlon Centre, after which we had about one kilometer to walk to the stadium. One-way trip took about an hour. The race organization was superb, everything went smoothly with German precision and organizational skills: especially the shuttle bus services, but also entrances and exits, restrooms (clean and lot of them!), and food services — food and drinks were served to tables in the food tents.

We also enjoyed the luxury of three full days of crispy cold winter weather with abundant sunshine and practically no wind — not that wind would have bothered us too much, but it might have made the races much more “interesting.” The last day was much warmer and cloudier. During the last race, which was men’s mass start on Sunday afternoon, it started snowing a bit.

Every day before travelling to the Biathlon Centre we walked a little tour in the beautiful town of Brunico. Actually, summing up our morning walks and also those to access the races and during the races, we walked 49.5 kilometers on those four days, while the biathletes, women and men taking part in all of the three races, skied 67.5 kilometers altogether.

Our biathlon star Kaisa Mäkäräinen was second in sprint, seventh in pursuit, and sixth in mass start.