Dolomites Trip - Day 13

We took the Alpe di Siusi Aerial cableway back up to Alpe di Siusi on the other side of the mountain this time. We started on the end where we had stopped for a picnic lunch last week and chatted with our girls. 

We walked to the Panorama Chairlift and rode it further up the mountain. From there our hike began on the Alpe di Tires hike.

There were switchbacks up the side of the mountain. Aghghghghgh, more climbing. 

It took us 30 minutes to get from the base of the mountain up to the top. I was so glad to be done. We walked down the other side of the mountain and stopped for a snack. 

There was a long walk back through fields and up and down hills. 

We stopped at Rifugio Schutzhous and had one of the best snacks of the whole trip. They were called shredded pancakes and were so tasty. 

We walked back to the Panorama lift and from there back to the cableway. We could have skipped the Panorama chairlift, but at the end of the day we walked 9 miles and climbed almost 2,500 feet in elevation over 4.5 hours.

We were happy to relax by the pool again for the rest of the afternoon.

Dolomites Trip - Day 12

The bells went off starting at 5:30 am, 7 am and 8:24 am (those lasted for about five minutes). Like I said, we weren’t sleeping in. 

From our hotel room, we could see a couple of castle ruins on the mountain side. We chose to walk to them today. It was quite the ascent up to the first castle. There wasn’t much to see and the first castle wasn’t accessible for exploring. 

Chris must have found some stinging nettle because his leg started to burn. We walked to the other ruins along a family-friendly nature path. More up and downhill with great views of the valley and surrounding mountain ranges.

We ended up at Laghetto di Fie, a lake. 

The park was filled with people having picnics, laying out, and jumping into the water. We sat and rested on a park bench and then continued our walk down to a bus stop. We let the bus driver navigate for us back to the hotel. 

It was nice to spend the rest of the afternoon taking a dip in the pool, and relaxing in the sun. 

We even had massages at the hotel spa, but they were only so so. The masseuse certainly didn’t work out any of the soreness.

Dolomites Trip - Day 11

We left Colle Santa Lucia this morning and said goodbye to Raffiela Gabriela. She was a great host, even giving us fresh vegetables from her garden. 

The sunrise was beautiful. I captured a few pics of the chapel in the early morning light. 

We left around 9:45 am and drove about 20 minutes to another lake called Lago di Alleghe. 

We took a few pics and then drove toward Marmalado where we would take three gondola rides to the top of the glacier. 

We started our ascent at the base at Malga Ciapela. We then changed from one tram to another at Antermoja and rode to the next stop at Serauta. 

We stopped at Serauta to see the World War I Museum, take pics of the glacier and then climbed through some more WWI tunnels. 

We were in the clouds and every so often they lifted a bit to catch a bit of blue sky.

We took the final gondola to the top of the glacier, Punta Rocca. We didn’t stay too long. There wasn't too much excitement at that level. We were at the top of the glacier, and employees were removing a covering that must have protected the glacier from the summer sun.

From Marmalado, we drove the mountain passes back to Castelrotto/Kastelruth where we would stay for the next three nights at ArtNatur Dolomites. It was a half board stay—included breakfast and dinner. So nice. 

We had the same table every day for breakfast and dinner with the same servers.

Our room was lovely overlooking the old town, the chapel and the Sciliar/Schlern mountains.

We went for a short walk before dinner. The church bells went off at 7 pm and were so loud. No chance we would be sleeping in here.

Kristen & A New Apartment

Kristen moved out of Branbury on August 14th. She stayed with Amy for a week before they all left on their cruise. 

She was able to move into her new place, a house, on August 29. And with much happiness I might add. (Amy was happy to get her place back as well).

Apparently, Kristen got custody of Flat Mom and Dad.

Kristen has a private basement room in a house with 7 other girls. There is a kitchen and living area on each floor plus two washers and dryers in the basement. She is not relegated just to the basement, but can be upstairs as well.

Turns out, the girl (Malia) she bought her Branbury contract from back in December is now one of her roommates. Malia had had enough of Cassie and her rabbit and just had to get out. They had been calling the cops on each other. Sadly, Kristen had to suffer through the Cassie experience for the next 9 months.

Malia is cool though and she and Kristen were amazed to find out what they had in common. And they could commiserate together!

Dolomites Trip - Day 10

We had to be out of the rental by 7 am for the 1.5 hour drive to Tre Cime—Three Peaks. 

Chris did his research and got us a reservation for parking six weeks ago. If you did not have a reservation, you had to either arrive very early or take a shuttle transfer to the national park. The reservation was purchased for a specific time, but you had any time with the 12 hours after to enter the park.

We parked, made a stop at toilet (a squatty potty I might add—meaning you squat over a porcelain hole in the ground and paid 1 euro for the privilege!), grabbed croissants from the cafe, and began our hike. 

We passed by a chapel, lots of hikers, cows, a little boy stacking rocks and getting frustrated in the process, and finally reached the far side of Tre Cime—Three Peaks—one of the most popular mountain groups in the Italian Alps.

At the end of the day, we would have walked an entire circuit around Tre Cime in just under 6 hours with 3,407 feet of elevation gain over 9.2 miles.

There are two trails in the photo below. Most people take the lower trail in the middle of the pic. We followed the upper trail on the left side of the pic.

Thus far we have hiked some fairly doable mountain trails that skirted around the side of the mountain. This one, though only 1.5 to 2 feet wide, was okay…until it wasn’t. 

The path was destroyed after a rock slide. People had created five sketchy looking footholds along the side of the mountain with no apparent security to keep them from falling away as you walked across them. I was not anxious to cross.

Chris climbed down the rock slide a but to see if it was possible for us to just follow it down to the road. It wasn’t. The option was to turn around or take five steps of faith. Another couple had passed us earlier and had apparently made it across the five steps. There was a German father and son behind us. The son was okay to make this passage, but the dad was more than willing to turn around a go back. I said lots of prayers and stepped. I don’t know how these steps managed to keep their structural integrity but I was so very grateful that they did. 

Of course, Chris said he wasn’t scared at all, but I felt as though I had just averted death. Whew.

We stopped at a tunnel in the hillside before finally reaching the Rifugio Dreizinnenhütte. I was happy to take a break and rest a bit.

There were two lakes on the other side of the mountain we had just skirted around. We walked down to them and then found a trail to skirt around yet another mountain. 

The hike back out of the area was up and up and up. So challenging. We were grateful to be done.

We had debated going to Lago di Braies, a popular lake that you also had to have reservations for, but it was an hour and a half away. Chris found a lake nearby and we stopped there instead. We walked a bit around the lake and then soaked our feet in the cold water of the lake. I’m not usually one who loves plunging my feet in cold water, but this felt good on my tired and weary feet. 

We tried to find a place to eat in Toblach nearby, but the places we stopped at required reservations. We started driving back toward Colle Santa Lucia and finally found a place called Koriander. It was…meh. We did not see one fast food restaurant in any of the places in the Dolomites.