I took melatonin and slept until 6:40 am. That's a win.
After the included breakfast at the hotel, we planned to hike today. Our gondola time was pre-purchased for 9:30 am. The hotel staff suggested that we could change it and go earlier or later as we wanted
The gondola lift was a short 7-minute walk from our hotel.
We arrived around 8:40 am and sadly found that they only allow you to go 15 minutes before your scheduled time. So Chris and I walked around a bit and then just waited until 9:15 am. We weren't the only ones trying to get up the mountain earlier. Maybe if we had been able to get an earlier start we would have seen more of the mountain and had less rain to contend with.
The ride up the mountain to Seceda took about 20 minutes with a switch from an 8-seater gondola to one that would hold probably 20 people. This was the most expensive gondola of our trip. It was about 80 € per person for the round trip.
They say it is busy at peak times and good to buy your tickets in advance, but I think you could still get tickets by walking up to the ticket booth prior to your ride. We certainly could have. The weather wasn't optimal, however, there were still a lot of people at the top of the mountain.
When we arrived, the rain had not yet started, but that only lasted about 20 mintues.
It was so much colder at the top of the mountain with the wind whipping around. We immediately put on our puffy vests and then our rain jackets. They kept us fairly warm for the morning. I had gloves back in my suitcase and was wishing I had brought them. This is the gondola station at the top of the second gondola ride.
It was raining in earnest now as we started on the hike along the ridge. Chris wasn't too happy once we entered a national park and the trail was pure mud and I wanted to turn around. We did anyway. We continued making our way down on a concrete brick pathway that was slippery at times.
Lots of tour groups.
I was grateful for a pit stop at a Rifugio—a small cafe on the mountainside. (There were many of them throughout all of the Dolomites.)
We began our long hike back UP to the gondola station. It seemed never ending.
I thought this pic of a Chinese group of tourists was pretty fun with all of the colorful rain ponchos.
We finally reached the gondola and were back at the hotel by 11:30 am. I think on a beautiful day we could have spent hours exploring more of the trails.
The next best thing? We both had naps. We wandered the old town with our umbrellas but were thrilled with an hour and a half reprieve from the rain.
We tried dinner at a newer restaurant called E-Quattro. Pizza only with the exception of a green salad and a Caprese salad. I tried to make our waitress understand that I didn't want the tomato sauce on a pizza, just olive oil. Finally she said, you want a white pizza? Yes. Now I know what to order.
It was a lot of food, so we walked around a little more after dinner.