As you read this, I will be heading from Milan to the Italian Alps, for a few days of hiking in the stupendous valley between the Brenta Dolomites and the glaciers of Adamello Presanella.
A few days later, I leave the land of pasta and prego for the equally panoramic mountains of Chiemgau and Berchtesgaden in the land of beer and bratwurst in neighboring Germany.
Part of my tour is along the new Via Alpina, a network of trails stretching over eight countries in Europe - France, Italy, Monaco, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia. There are hundreds of trails, and if you do them all, you will cross national borders more than 60 times!
Let's just talk about my route.
I'm starting Madonna de Campiglio, one of Italy's most popular ski and summer resorts. The Adamello-Brenta Natural park there has more than 300 miles of trails through fir woods and larch forests for hiking and mountain biking.
I'll be eating lunch at various mountain refuges. Only in the Alps do they call charming mid-mountain restaurants that serve delicious and hearty food a refuge. Okay, so it is a refuge from hiking or biking, where you can sit for as long as you like drinking in the view from the terrace.
Another excursion is to the Nardis Waterfall in Val de Genova, just above the village of Pinzolo. There's a graveyard in Pinzolo with dates back to a period before the year 1,000. I am most definitely looking forward to wandering around this historic village, and also nearby Moena, which was founded in 1184.
The Bavarian half of my trip has a more recent history.
You might not know the name King Ludwig II, who built castles all over his country, now part of Germany, nearly bankrupting it nearly two centuries ago. One of his castles is Neueschwanstein, which you probably know better from the ones Walt Disney copied for his theme parks as Cinderella's castle.
Ludwig's castle at Chiemsee is one he copied from Louis XIV of France, called Versailles. The hiking here will be to see some of the 20 state bedrooms and sprawling formal gardens.
Another day, I'll be visiting Berchtesgaden. Bavaria's kings chose the land at the foot of Mount Watzmann as their summer residence and kept it for themselves.
More recently, the mountaintop perch and view known as Eagle's Nest was built for Adolf Hitler. Now, it's a national park, where everyone can enjoy the hiking paths and sunest views.
Evelyn Kanter - Ever since I fell asleep in the back seat of my parent's car and woke up at my front door, I have thought that travel is a magical ...
