The Dolomites

After Verona we drove about three hours up to a small town called San Cassiano, in the middle of the Dolomite Mountains. (Dolomite is pronounced "doe low ME tee" by the way). We stayed in a hotel called the Rosa Alpina, which has been open since the 19th century, when this area was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. I am sure you all remember the Battle of Monte Grappa and the Battle of the Adige River. Bad stuff. Thousands of soldiers killed, some froze to death.

Here is the route:

The first part of the drive was very simple, but towards the end you really had some switchbacks and blind curves. What a drive!

But when we got to the Rosa Alpina, this was the view:

Fantastic!

Another view of the town:

We arrived there on my birthday, and ate at a wonderful restaurant associated with the hotel called St Hubertus.

We had a great meal. (Doreen is very good to me!)

And they even made me a birthday cake:

The next day we decided to take our hiking poles and make our way up the Alta Badia mountains.

We had an option to take a gondola up the mountain and walk down, but we decided to walk both ways.

Which was nice, because we got to see cows.

There is the gondola we could have taken. Not for us!!!

But we knew it was going to be a long walk up.

I had read the Google Map detail, and it looked like there was a  600' elevation increase.

Well, since we were in Italy, the units were actually meters!

So that was closer to 2,000'!

That is where we were going.

It was beautiful.

 The Hills are alive!

 High on a Hill was a Lonely Goatherd!

Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo!

One little girl in a pale pink hat heard
Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo
She yodeled back to the lonely goatherd
Lay ee odl lay ee odl-oo

This was a pretty easy walk, all in all. No scrambling or bouldering.

 And we had good signs.

I loved my stick.

The views just kept getting better.

and better.

And then when we got to the top, we were able to eat wurstel and sauerkraut!

 Here is a track of the hike up:

The hike down was easier.

The next day we drove up to another hiking area called the Cinque Torri (Five Towers). They still have trenches from WWI, and they had a chair lift to get to the top.

This time, we made potential energy our friend. We ski-lifted up, as terrifying as that was:

and then walked down.

These are the five towers.

and  here are the trenches:

It was a beautiful day

They had wild Forget-Me-Nots in the meadows

 And climbers galore! These guys

 are on top of that peak.

Finally, on our last day in the Dolomites (really, the Dolomiti) we took a gondola up to the famous Jimmy Huitt!

 Gondolas are not as scary as chair lifts, but they are not fun, either.

The chef from St Hubertus had created a special deconstructed Carbonara pasta

Too delicious for words.

It is hard to see here, but the meadows were full of flowers.

and you had a great view down the valleys.

Waterfalls big

 and small

We are not doing a lying down selfie here. We are at Jimmy's Huitt.

 with this view.

This was a wonderful four night leg of the trip. The weather was beautiful, the food was great, and we really enjoyed the hiking.

In general, we prefer to vacation in cities. But his opens up all sort of new opportunities for us.

The Appalachian Trail?

The Pacific Coast Trail?

The Ice Age Trail?

Who knows?

But being outside was fun. We felt healthy and the people we met were great.