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pandemicperipatetics · 5 months ago

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Italy III: Dolomites Trek (2/2)

Continued from the previous post on the Dolomites Trek...

Day 4: We hiked most of the popular Sassolungo Circuit Hike, starting at Rifugio Valentini and ending at Rifugio Sasso Piatto. Sassolungo (“long stone”) is a notable mountain that is large enough to make a day out of circumnavigating it.

Sassolungo

The beginning was mostly flat and downhill through a beautiful area that looked like a botanical garden.

Mountain views near the "botanical garden"

After an ~hour we hit a Mercedes-sponsored rifugio that had very luxurious bathrooms (uplighting, etc.).

Cows by the Mercedes rifugio

From there we walked uphill for a couple hours, mostly along the side of the cliff with stunning views of the valley below, and then stopped for lunch at Rifugio Vicenza along the way (the gnocchi was great).

Walking uphill along Sassolungo

Valley views

View of Rifugio Vicenza

After lunch we continued for a couple hours to Rifugio Sasso Piatto – I don’t really remember this part of the hike. This was one of our easier and shorter hiking days, and given the popularity and comparative ease of this trail, we encountered many more tourists, and more Americans than any other day of the trek.

More walking

Rifugio Sasso Piatto was the most crowded rifugio we stayed at, and we had to stay in a shared dormitory (bunk beds with 10 spots, though luckily 4 spots remained empty) because the private rooms were booked out by the time we reserved our trek ~6 weeks in advance. The shared dormitory was not quite as bad as expected (Nyquil + Loop earplugs + eye mask did the trick) and the food was pretty good.

Day 5: This was the most epic day, and the most difficult. Pretty much every part of this ~9-hour day was surreally beautiful, starting with the first couple of hours through Alpine meadows dotted with sheep, cows, and horses. There were a few times we had to walk right by cows and bulls that were not fenced in and seemed skittish.

We saw a horse scaring off a skittish bull

Sassolungo

About 4 hours in, by the time we reached Rifugio Antermoia, the landscape had really changed.

Rifugio Antermoia

We walked around an insane glacial lake (strong Banff teahouse hike vibes) to encounter Passo d’Antermoia – a pass that our trek organizer had warned us might require us to walk in snow up to our knees, and that stood between us and the recommended lunch spot, Rifugio Passo Principe.

The glacial lake

Trying to make it up Passo D'Antermoia

View from the top of the pass

Despite the organizer’s caveat, I had not expected that we’d effectively be walking up a ski slope so steep that it would have been difficult without the snow (particularly with a pack weighing 20-25% of my body weight), let alone now slipping and sliding down it in the wintery conditions, even with crampons. This Sisphyean hike was the first time in the trek that I was not sure I would make it to the next rifugio – the second time being when we eventually reached the top and saw that we had to descend just as steep a downhill, which we found even harder and resulted in many slips and falls (thankfully cushioned by lots of snow).

Some of the perilous downhill (this photo does not do it justice)

We saw almost no one else on this path, though we did spot a few via ferrata hikers who actually donned their helmets for this descent. It took us 2x the budgeted amount of time to complete, and when we finally, miraculously reached Rifugio Passo Principe, we were more than a little disappointed to find that it was closed and under construction. So much for lunch after 7 hours of intense hiking!

Heading down from Passo Principe

Luckily, after continuing along down a scenic valley surrounded by mountains for about 40 minutes, we encountered Rifugio Vajolet, which had the first and only vegan food menu we found in the Dolomites. The food was a delight, and couldn’t have been a more timely reward for us.

Rifugio Vajolet's vegan crepe with mushrooms, gnocchi with soy ragu, and salad with eggs, beans, and cheese really hit the spot.

After this, we had just another ~40 minutes descent to Rifugio Stella Alpina, where the very sweet proprietress welcomed us and just 1 other guest for the night. The rifugio was comfortable and clean, with some of the more basic food we ate. It was quite an experience waking up to cows mooing and jangling their bells.

Rifugio Stella Alpina

Day 6: Sadly, our last day’s hiking itinerary was almost entirely disrupted due to snow. We only hiked about an hour from Stella Alpina over to the town of Ciampedie, where we took a quick cable car down to Vigo di Fassa, the largest town we had seen all week.

From there we took a ~30 minute bus ride down to Lago di Carezza, a very clear, highly Instagrammable lake with a flat ~25 minute walk around its circumference. Both the bus and the lake were very crowded with tourists. It was nice, but in my opinion, didn’t hold a candle to any of the hikes we did.

Lago di Carezza

We ended our trip with a bus ride up to Castel Latemar, the basic hotel that we were put up in for our first and last nights. We grabbed a pretty good lunch nearby at Hennenstal Restaurant, whose menu thankfully offered a few non-Tyrolean food options (pizza! Grilled vegetables!) – refreshing after a week of eating the same few things every day.

Food

We were expecting to eat delicious Italian food every day in the Dolomites. In reality, we mostly ate Tyrolean food, which we came to learn is quite different. As vegetarians, our options were limited to a few common dishes that were available at pretty much every hut:

Fried eggs with slices of baked potato

Polenta with sauteed mushrooms and thick slices of swiss cheese

A very basic “mixed salad” of lettuce, raddichio, shredded carrots, corn (and a few lucky times, beans). Two of our rifugios also had a salad bar at dinner, which thankfully had more ingredient options.

Canederli – a traditional dumpling-like dish that was delicious and also the most buttery thing I have ever eaten in my entire life

Pasta (sometimes) – the pro tip here is to always get the types of pasta that are made fresh (e.g., tagliatelle, gnocchi, ravioli) and not those that are dry pastas (e.g., spaghetti, penne). The fresh pastas we ate in the Dolomites were generally pretty good, if typically not as good as Italian food we’ve had in other parts of Italy, whereas the dry pastas tasted like American “Italian” food.

The spaghetti at Rifugio Contrin was a bit like a kids' meal at an Olive Garden...

Cheese plate – A couple of places had a “cheese plate” but this really only consisted of various cheeses and maybe a jam, without the expected fruit or nuts we’re accustomed to in the U.S.

Desserts: Tiramisu, apple strudel, ice cream – though we usually skipped these and asked for fruit. Tyrol is known for its apples, and Rifugio Dolomia served us really delicious apples for dessert.

Breakfast: We always had the same thing – bread + cheese + boiled egg (except for Rifugio Contrin, which didn’t even offer eggs) and yogurt + muesli (only Rifugio Valentini offered any fresh fruit at breakfast). There were usually also various pastries and jams available.

A note on water: Some of the rifugios had potable water and others didn't. Sometimes they had these structures for refilling water bottles and bladders, but the water from these spouts was sometimes not potable -- always worth asking first!

We were very glad to have packed lots of protein-heavy snacks for the trek (protein powder, nuts, edamame, vegan jerky, protein bars). By the end, we were relieved to return to a greater variety of food options and availability of fresh fruit and vegetables (yay fiber!).

Overall, the Dolomites trek was one of the coolest ways I’ve ever spent a week. It made me a bit more confident in my backpacking abilities, and it was also humbling to encounter many incredibly fit hikers (Europeans set a high bar!). It was helpful having the trip organized by a knowledgeable operator and traversing less crowded areas than many of the standard Dolomites day hikes. I’d gladly go back to the Dolomites – they are vast and there are so many other parts to explore!

#dolomites #sassolungo #sassopiatto #stellaalpina #lagodicarezza #karersee #carezza #south tyrol #rifugio

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rosie-b · 11 months ago

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Centuries Overdue

Summary:

Long ago, an evil Darkness spread across Europe, claiming the lives of many in the magic community. Trained by Plagg himself, Adrien made it his mission to stop the Darkness before it snuffed out the lives of more Mages and Talents, as it did to his own parents. Though he seemed to succeed in his mission, the pages of his old journals tell a different tale.

In the modern world, Marinette is a fashion student, working at a small library for the summer to earn extra credit. She’s never believed in magic before, but when she finds the old Agreste journals in her library, her beliefs about reality begin to crumble. Determined to find the truth, both about magic and the unsolved death of one Adrien Agreste, Marinette begins on a journey that will eventually lead her deep into the city’s catacombs, where an ancient force sleeps, but is ready to awaken once more…

Read chapter 1 on AO3 or below! I hope you enjoy 💕

Excerpt from the eighth journal of Adrien Agreste, written at Sassolungo Castle in Italy, on the first of November 1809.

There are times when I think myself unfit to be called a Traveler, much less an Adventurer, for my Heart longs for the feeling of Home above all these foreign cliffs and castles. Still, at times like this I am reminded of how necessary my Travels are and why I must continue them.

At first, my only desire was to honor my Parents. That was the Feeling, the unabating Urge, which drove me to the treacherous Forests of the Harz Mountains, to the Supljara Cave, and to even the farthest reaches of Europe, but with Time’s passing a new Desire grows within me.

There is something wild growing in the Darkness; when I close my Eyes I can feel it growing. It is a most disturbing Feeling, and one I am not alone in noticing. The Mages of Tikki and Plagg have felt it also, and have noted its Growth. It cares not for the Moon, nor the Stars, nor the Sun, but its Presence continues to spread unchecked at all times.

I fear if we do not find its cause ere the spring festivals’ start, it will prove too powerful to be Destroyed, and so I have made it my business to uncover its Secrets. This Darkening is surely a sign of a stronger, more sinister Magic, and I fear that there are things darker and still more guileful to come of it. I must make all Haste to prevent its growth, which is why I must journey to the edges of Light, to the place where my parents died…

_-*-_ _-*-_ _-*-_ _-*-_

It was Marinette’s first day at work.

The small library was much bigger than Marinette had expected, or at least it felt that way. In half an hour’s worth of shelf reading, she’d only gotten through four shelves, not nearly as many as she’d hoped to check. She had decided to blame it on the call numbers; the way they were printed on the books varied depending on when they had been added to the collection, and she was finding that made older ones difficult to read. Those numbers, written in fading black ink directly on the books’ covers, were the hardest to make out, and she’d wasted several minutes trying to tell 8s and 6s apart.

But it was almost time for her lunch break, so Marinette jotted down her progress on the chart the head librarian had given her and returned to the circulation desk, where an old man was insisting that the new computers did not work, or if they did, they were far too confusing for an eighty-year-old to understand.

“I’m just trying to log into my email account, but I can’t even find the right button to turn the thing on,” the man said, tapping his cane on the floor emphatically.

“I can help with that!” Marinette folded her paper and set it down. “If you’ll just lead me to the computer you were using, I can get you signed in, no problem!”

The other library intern, whose lunch break came just before Marinette’s, smiled gratefully at her. She grinned back. Some people didn’t like this part of the job, but to Marinette it didn’t seem so bad. Then again, it was only her first day as an intern.

“Oh, thank you!” The man seemed very relieved, and he slowly began making his way over to the computers. He lowered himself into the third chair from the left with a heavy sigh. “I’ve already tried jiggling the mouse, but I don’t know if it’s even connected, because nothing’s happening.”

Marinette frowned and glanced at the monitor. The power button was hidden at the back of the screen, so she carefully turned the monitor around to check. As she thought, the button wasn’t glowing. She pressed it once and waited for it to turn green, and within seconds, the monitor was displaying its login screen.

“There you go, sir. Log in as a guest and let me know if you have problems getting to your email. Okay?”

The man smiled and clapped his hands together, knocking over his wooden cane. “Thank yo— oh! Thank you again, miss,” he laughed as Marinette picked up the cane and handed it to him. “Don’t know why they’re hiding the important buttons behind the screen these days. Made me look like a fool, didn’t it?”

Marinette smiled. “It just takes a while to get used to. And don’t worry, I was happy to help!”

The old man waved as Marinette turned to walk back to the desk.

That wasn’t so bad, she thought cheerfully. At least I’m doing some things right at this job.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng was not a librarian, nor did she have any intention of becoming one. But it was summer break, and she wanted to get a head start on internship credits for university. All the fashion houses in Paris had already chosen interns; luckily, it didn’t matter where the internship was as long as it provided some of the same skills working at a fashion house would, which this position did. It wasn’t even hard to get, since most people looking to work at a library applied to the François-Mitterrand Library, ignoring this smaller location, which was a mere municipal library not part of the BnF. The position paid decently well, and it guaranteed Marinette the extra credit she needed to give her a boost at university.

I already have a robust resume anyway, she had told herself when she’d been debating whether to apply to the little Bourgeois Library or not. Being Jagged Stone’s favorite costume and album designer has to count for something! And my designs have been featured in Style Queen a few times, too. Next year, I can have my pick of Paris’ fashion houses to work at.

It was time for Marinette’s lunch break, so she clocked out and grabbed the lunch her mother had packed. Normally, she would have gone somewhere else to make the most of her break, but she wanted to explore the library a bit more. There were lots of rooms on both levels of the renovated building, and she wanted to be able to guide patrons to the right section of books when they asked without getting lost.

With this in mind, Marinette finished her reheated croque monsieur and ventured off to explore. There were still forty minutes left of her break according to the new watch on her wrist — plenty of time to acquaint herself with the building.

The children’s area was downstairs, a colorful section full of picture books, games, movies, audiobooks, and bright-colored bean bag chairs. It wasn’t as full as it usually was, the children’s librarian said, but on weekends especially there were dozens of children and parents at a time filling the area.

On the far side of the basement was the young adult area. It hadn’t been renovated along with the rest of the building, and the gray shelves of books, old video games, DVDs, and three comic books looked unappealing to Marinette, and apparently to the rest of the young adult population, as there was only one person in the area. They sat in the lone, wooden chair by the poster advertising the youth group’s fall meeting schedule, looking at something on their laptop.

Marinette squinted as she made out the lone tuft of white hair on top of the visitor’s head. At least they’re young at heart, she thought with a shrug.

Back upstairs, there were three big rooms and one smaller one, with a central area where the laptop and computer desks sat, as well as the circulation desk, several sofas, and wood tables with cushioned chairs. Then, the three larger connected rooms — the North room held the nonfiction area, the West held fiction, and the East room had everything from large print to a kindle station to an open dictionary.

The last room Marinette visited was the smallest. It had a red carpet, large south-facing windows, a wooden globe atop a low shelf of foreign-language books, and a small, one-sided shelf of old, leather books facing the sun. On the other side of the shelf, there was a lone, wooden table in front of one red velvet chair.

Marinette walked around the room, gave the globe a couple spins, and stood by the central shelf to examine the books. A golden metal sign on it read that these were part of a special collection, and were not able to be checked out, although anyone could read them while within the library. They’d been donated by the Bourgeois family at the start of the library’s usage, and had remained there ever since.

But there weren’t any more librarians in the Bourgeois family; they had moved on to politics halfway through the last century and hadn’t looked back. Marinette supposed they were happy being richer, but a single library donation in the 1800s wasn’t enough charity work to persuade her to vote for Mayor Bourgeois in the upcoming election.

Marinette looked closer at the collection of books. Was it just her, or did it look like the old books were rusting? Small piles of red dust sat at the edges of the shelves, and the spines of many of the books were cracked, allowing her to see the threads that were binding them together.

She gingerly picked a book off the shelf, noting the cloud of dust it created; the way the spine threatened to crack in two at her touch; the brittle, yellow pages; and, with a look of disgust, the way it seemed to instantly suck all the moisture from her skin.

She immediately put the book back. Her hands were now covered in red dust from the cover.

Marinette rubbed her fingertips together, trying to get the dust off, but it seemed to have sunk deep into the lines of her skin.

Wonderful.

Marinette headed to the bathroom and washed her hands (and then washed them again when the dust didn’t come off the first time). Her break was almost over, anyway, so she might as well head back to the desk. Before she did, she stopped in the South room one more time, looking for the name of the book’s publisher so she could know who was responsible for her mishap.

The Journals of Adrien Agreste, vol. 3, read the half-attached spine of the book, which apparently had no publisher and was more of a diary than anything else.

Well, who would put that in a library? Marinette wondered. No wonder you can’t check it out. The first thing anyone would do with it after they left the building would be toss it in the trash just to spare future patrons.

And she walked back to the desk, taking long, confident strides and silently cursing this Adrien person for writing in books that would fall apart so easily. She wouldn’t be returning to that room anytime soon.

_-*-_ _-*-_ _-*-_ _-*-_

Excerpt from the eighth journal of Adrien Agreste, written in Munich, Bavaria, on the fourth of November 1809.

Being an Orphan is less tragic than one might expect. It puts me in good company, and it guarantees a kind of Sympathy from most people I meet. Emphasizing the sorrowful Look of a young Orphan helped me secure many a meal when I was younger and traveling, often Alone, back to Plagg’s cave after my parents’ death. Nevertheless, when I am by myself, I am struck by the Guilt and Sorrow I felt on the day I lost them… Some wounds take too long to heal.

Since to the best of my Memory I have never written about the Disaster before in these journals, I suppose I should put it here. It wouldn’t do to let it be forgotten, after all, and it may aid me in recalling the Dangers of Blå Jungfrun, the destination of this journey.

My mother’s Spirit was more adventurous than my father’s; the voyage to Blå Jungfrun was her Idea. There used to be a circle of Mages on the island, but an inhospitable Darkness drove them out. My mother wanted to see if, since much Time had passed since then, the island was safe once more, and she planned to do this using her Talent. My father was against the idea at first, arguing that neither of them had the ability to use Magic, only to detect and defend it through their Talents.

At that time, it was unknown to me that I had a Mage’s Gift, not the simpler Talent my parents had. They were afraid of the dangers Mages face, and tried to spare me from Harm by holding the knowledge of my magic back from me. Untrained as I was, I could not even sense Magic, and I was completely dependent on my parents to sniff out Curses and other Evils for me. My father mentioned this, too, but my mother was unswayed.

To her sensible mind, the Talents of my parents were more than enough to protect themselves and me from lurking Dangers. And no-one had visited Blå Jungfrun in nearly a century. Whatever Darkness once lived there, it had nothing to sustain it. Surely, it must be dead, she told my father.

Wanting to please his wife, and trusting in her own trust, he agreed to take me to Blå Jungfrun, island of the Blue Maiden.

The journey through Sweden was pleasant from what I remember. There are two groups of Mages in the South of that country, Ravlunda’s group being the largest. I plan to stop there on my own journey, which I pray will not be as ill-fated as my parents’ was.

Departing for Blå Jungfrun from Oskarshamn, my parents took a small boat, protected by Charms given to them by the Mages of Ravlunda. I went with them, and my clothes were similarly protected by Charms for extra safety, while my parents did not wear charms on theirs. There was one Mage from Oskarshamn who came with us, and she had the foresight to wear already-charmed clothing. That is how she and I escaped from the Dark Island.

The Island itself is nothing special. There are trees and rocks covering a large hill, which is otherwise barren. The locals have long feared that place, and call it the Mountain of Witches. They are not far off, except in time, since the Mages have long abandoned it.

The Ocean’s strange waves had floated the Boat a little way from the Shore; since there was no dock to tie our boat to, this had been expected. My parents and the Mage waded out to the boat where I still was, having spent less than five minutes on Shore, and that is when the Darkness struck.

It had sensed our Presence, and gathered into a Storm, fully visible even to me, and too powerful to be banished by the Mage. It was all she could do to keep the boat, and me in it, afloat as it threatened to capsize and was pulled still further out. By now my parents had to swim, their feet unable to touch ground under the water, and the Mage as well. I was frightened and did not know what to do, though I strove with all my might to row the boat back to my parents, and all the while the Darkness was growing until at last a Tendril reached out from the storm and dragged my mother fully under the waves.

My father dove in after her, thinking to save her, as the Mage climbed into the boat and cast a protective Spell just strong enough to create a sphere of safety in the Storm. We searched and searched as the Storm raged on, hoping to find my parents resurfaced, or to see their forms in the water and haul them into the Boat. But they were forever lost to the Darkness. We never found them, and for our own safety, the Mage determined that we must head away from the Island, which was the only place the Darkness seemed to draw power from.

I went back to Plagg’s cave, which is hidden in the Harz mountains, and stayed with the Mages there until I was old enough to take up my parents’ mission and travel again, recording the Darkness, keeping peace between Mages as their countries went to war again and again, and eventually learning of the Magic that was hidden inside me.

I have been lucky enough to take lessons from Plagg himself during his visits to the Cave, however impossible to understand and often of little help to a peaceful traveler like myself said Lessons are.

But now, if the Darkness is spreading, then I will need all the spells he taught me and more.

As I set out to the Blue Maiden, I plan for my journey to be a slow one. This is only in part due to the Ocean not being safe during winter. I will stay in Bavaria for a while and take lessons from the Mages of Mullo. Then I will move on to Leipzig and Berlin, should the fighting (for there is always War now) allow it, and finally to Świnoujście and from there to Sweden. Along the way, I hope to gather a small group of stout-hearted Mages to aid me in my Fight.

I must take the Time to carefully prepare to face whatever twisted Mage is at the heart of this Darkness, for I grow ever surer that there is one. Darkness does not move on its own, but it relies on Servants to work for it.

Let those Servants beware, for if I find them, I will not show them Mercy.

Author’s note: This is the first chapter of my fic for the @mlbigbang!! There are eight chapters total and I’ll be updating weekly, on Thursdays. I’d like to thank all the mods for helping this event go smoothly, my three beta readers (Angel, Helios, and my sister @poorschilpad) for keeping me on track, and my two amazing artists, @acise and @nireu-art for their crazy cool work. You guys are the best! 💕

#ml fanfic #rosie-b writing #miraculous ladybug #ml au #centuries overdue #i do recommend viewing it on ao3 because i used a super cool work skin so it looks superior to this version

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