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TreCime de Lavaredo

Our first hike (Cinqui Torre) was wonderful, and we got to see many of the other ranges and peaks that surround Cortina D'Ampezzo and further beyond. At the top of Cinque one thing that stood out to me was extensive trail system that exists not only here, but throughout Italy -- we also started to understand the history behind these trails. In the pictures you can see us walking through what was military trenches dating back to WW1.

Next in our trail line-up was the Tre Cime, one of the most touristed trails in all of Dolomites. The trail was also 11K so it was good for us (we were backpack training so walking with 10-20 kilos each) and we're novice at that so we were gonna stick to trails that were 1-2 difficulty level, 10-15K max. Moreover, Tre Cime is one of the prize peaks so it was kind of a must-see. We checked out of Cortina Camping and started driving to the trail head. We stopped at Misurina lake and village for food and picked up a pair of walking poles for Carol (good spot for gear, cheaper than fancy stores in Cortina). We hiked the short 3K trail around the lake, stopping for pictures and reading up more on Tre Cime and planning the next days. After hiking we kept driving to the trailhead but there was a toll entrance that charged 30 euros for parking for 12-hours, so we found a spot just down the road to car-camp for the night. Our plan was to enter the toll gate before sunrise and be the first ones on the trail That's what we did and it was worth it! When we arrived we were the first two or three cars. When we exited the trail there was hundreds of cars and thousands of hikers.

As far as the trail goes, well, I'll let the pictures talk...

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Cortina D’Ampezzo

Our adventure now continued to the main event, one of the primary reasons we came to Italy together with visiting Carol's sister: Backpacking in the Dolomites (click on name for details about what Dolomites is).

I mean the mountains you see at Lago di Garda are kinda the beginning of the Dolomites per say. The area is massive, but thousands of trails, chair lifts, gondolas, trail huts, hotels, towns, lakes, etc... There is books and websites and forums and chat groups dedicated to help people decide where to go, what trails to explore, etc etc etc. The amount of info is daunting We chose to go straight to Cortina D'Ampezzo and I think it was the right decision. Here are some pics of our approach to Cortina and the town itself, which will be hosting the 2026 Winter Olympics!!

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I'm back in Turin and have a stable WiFi connection and lots of rain -- good moment to get caught up although today we'll be on the move again.

Back tracking to Valsesia, where we spent time our first week in Italy, I had mentioned we did a quick visit to this place, Sacro Monti de Varalo. It's basically the story of the Bible (life of Jesus part anyway) told in sculptured scenes set inside various buildings that you walk through -- like an interactive tour.

The funny part is the day we went, for some reason, there was nobody around -- like literally nobody, we were all alone. Almost felt like place was closed and we snuck in. I would chuckle to myself because at times, I felt like I was Tom Hanks in the Da Vinci Code...

[advntrdad]

yo yo sorry for lag on Italy Travel blog — I think my free 5 gigs of internet is up so they slowed my speeds down to where Tumblr won’t work properly. Anyway I’m leeching WiFi at the house we’re staying at so..

Few days back before we left the Valsesia region we drove up to the Mera Ski Lift Resort (they call it Alpe de Mera) and walked for a 8 hours. We were shooting for “Ometto Peak” but stopped a little short to play it safe with time and daylight remaining. Instead we picked a lesser peak and found a nice spot to take a break and eat some food — ended up taking a 40 minute nap (this nap was deep, full of wild dreams — the deepest, most restful sleep I’ve had in weeks!!)

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Cinque Torri

Okay, so I had bought my little pocket guide book for Dolomites hiking back home before we arrived in Italy. There was hundreds of books on trails and the various mountain groups within the Dolomites and the information was massive so I narrowed it down by purchasing this book that focused on 50 one- day hikes. From that list we narrowed it down to trails close to Cortina d'Ampezzo and of course, that had a description that was appealing to us (we now know they are ALL appealing in their own way) and we chose Cinqui Torri as our first hike. It was a 10K walk of medium difficulty. You could just do half the hike and use the gondola lift (that's what most tourists do) but we came to hike and practice walking with a full size backpack so we took on the challenge of the full ascent and descent.

It had been raining for past few days so land was pretty damp, almost reminding me of walking in Costa Rica -- lots of mud, you had to be super careful but then the trail started to climb. The sun came out finally. We felt soooo lucky because so many people had cancelled their Dolomite visit due to weather. They even tried to talk us out of it but we were stubborn and followed through with our plan

The views of the adjacent Tofane mountain started to peak through the trees and eventually, the 5 towers (hence the name of the trail) started to come into view as well as 360 degrees of just amazing mountainous terrain. Lots of people ride the lift to this vantage point and then walk the trails up top only, or they walk to one of the Rifugios (mountain lodges) for a meal; some people choose to walk back down but most just ride the Gondola back down Later we realized that's kinda how it works in many of these trails. We wanted to test our backpacking skills and endurance, and save money, so we decided not to use lifts this time.

Here are some pics from that first hike in the Dolomites

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Grand Central station in Sac town— waiting on Amtrak train connect to Frisco. Contemplating our country and its problems, as I look at this historic mural depicting an entirely different moment in time.

#Rollin50s #Advntrdad

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Travel Jitters

I fly to Turin (Italy) on Monday so in prep (angst) mode -- 5 weeks of travel so deciding on clothes, what to take, what's important, what's not worth the weight; checking travel docs, call bank, get cash (hide cash -- yeah, read about pick pocketing -- fun ;), report travel to state department (huh?!). Been dabbling at learning basic words in Italian, listening to RAI, watched some Italy history YouTube vids: 7th largest economy, founding member of EU, epicenter of Renaissance, one of most touristed places on earth. Definitely intrigued... Never been on a plane for more than 6 hours -- not so intrigued how that's gonna go...

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