Dolomites Didn’t Disappoint

One of the things I was most looking forward to on the trip was a daylong tour of the Dolomites. The what? The Dolomites are a mountain range in northern Italy that are actually part of the Alps and also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, whose description of the Dolomites includes this: “some of the most beautiful mountain landscapes anywhere, with vertical walls, sheer cliffs and a high density of narrow, deep and long valleys.”

So today was the day. I dutifully waited at Markthalle which is just what it sounds like (market hall) after purchasing some Erdbeeren (aka jordbær in Norwegian, as noted in a 2011 entry) which you probably know as strawberries (they were good but not great). The expected blue Mercedes van arrived with an unexpected guide (Anna) and four other passengers: the woman from Malaysia who currently lives in the United Arab Emirates, the woman from Portugal who currently lives in Scotland and works as a nurse consultant [think nurse practitioner], the woman from Korea who currently lives in Florida, and the Korean woman’s mother. Turns out the husband and wife who own the tour company decided that Anna should drive the “all girl” tour, something she later confirmed was a very rare occurrence. It turned out to be a delightful group. 

Anna was intrigued by my last name and reached the obvious, erroneous conclusion about its origin….and checked in with me about it a few times during the day which I found amusing. 

Anyway, we drove quite a distance through rugged green terrain. There was lots of discussion about what Austria is known for — mostly using a (supportive) Socratic method where Anna would ask questions such as what we knew Austria is known for. Someone answered cheese, which immediately led my brain to offer Sacher Torte (very tasty layered chocolate cake with apricot jam) which led to a long discussion the history and legal battles about Sacher Tortes. Later Anna asked where we were and where we were headed and was impressed enough with my answers “Tirol” and “South Tirol” that she gave me a Mozart chocolate (the thought was lovely, but the chocolate not so much). Later someone asked how the Dolomites were formed and Anna asked me to reply so I suggested that I assumed techtonic plate movements (clearly they’re not volcanoes) which turned out to be the answer. 

Did I mention that the Dolomites were featured in the 2017 Star Wars movie? And, as it turns out, a bunch of other films. 

We went to the Drei Zinnen National Park in Italy, also called the Tre Clime National Park (or, in English, Three Peaks). UNESCO isn’t kidding about vertical walls and sheer cliffs. The first view is from our first stop. The second view is from a different angle taken at our second stop and shows more of the rocks’ color but only two of the peaks. The rocks themselves are calcium carbonate and magnesium carbonate, so there is indeed a pinkish tinge to them in the right light (alas, we didn’t have much of that light since we were there more mid-day than dawn or dusk). 

Of course, there were far more than just the three peaks to look at. Most of the stops included lakes, several of which were jade green but at least one of them (not pictured) was more brown. 

I happened to mention geocaching (I know, quel surpris! Good thing you’re probably sitting down as you read this). Seems a few of the others had heard about it but no one had found a cache before. At our second stop, Lago de Misurina, there was a cache less than 100 meters from where we parked so I went to go find it … with an entourage of five others. Fortunately, it was in the first place I looked so they were impressed. This of course led to lots of questions about caching later in the day, and I gave everyone a note about how to create an account, providing a bit of extra information from my “other” hat. 

We shared a late lunch at an Italian restaurant across the street from one of the lakes we visited — yes, I touched the water and skipped a stone. Amusingly enough, among my extremely limited German vocabulary are the words erdbeere and himbeere (strawberry and raspberry), and I was able to translate for Anna. At least I know some of the important words (I also know schokolade which you should be able to guess if you say it out loud, and bahnhof which means train station). And in the useless vocabulary department, I learned today that “cu” in Portuguese means “ass.” Who said traveling couldn’t be educational?

After lunch we headed to a different national park, specifically to the lake named Le Lago de Braies (or, in German, Pragser Wildsee). It was a beautiful rich green somewhere between jade and emerald. Lots of people were there, many of them in boats or swimming/wading in the water. We wandered one direction to take pictures, then back the other way to find another geocache (fortunately I found it within a couple of minutes, though several others had great ideas of where to search) and finally over to the water to dip our feet in. The water was great — just chilly enough to be refreshing on a warm day, but not so cold as to be painful. Alas, the beach was a rock/pebble beach rather than a sand beach so it was very uncomfortable to walk on barefoot and the ground beneath the water was the same pebbles so I didn’t stay in long. I did, however skip a couple of stones and achieved multiple skips each time. 

Stunning scenery and an interesting and friendly group of people made for a wonderful day. Current plan for the next 3 days in Innsbruck is to buy a 72-hour “pass” which will let me into many of the attractions. And yes, I really do plan to find at least one cache in this city.