“We open in Venice, We next play Verona” (Part 2 of 3)

We took the bus back to Marco Polo airport (or that was the plan) to pick up our rental car. It is just too hard to get around the mountains and small towns with public transportation. I bought the ticket for the bus in Venice main transportation square. The guy directed us to the right bus. About 45 minutes into what was supposed to be a 20min trip I began to get nervous. Why were we winding through all these neighborhoods? Why was Google maps showing us going in the opposite direction of Marco Polo airport? Eventually we get to an airport, but not the right airport. I asked driver why his partner scanned and put us on that bus even though our ticket says Marco Polo airport. He got all dramatic European on me, yelling “Me!? I did not put you on that bus!” I replied that his coworker did, but this guys was not taking taking the corporate responsibility view. So we took the bus all the way back to Venice and then another bus to the right airport. If we were trying to catch a flight vs just picking up a rental car, I would have been fuming.

2 Hours later we arrived in Cortina d'Ampezzo, our lodging for the next 2 nights.

We were actually staying in a hotel just outside and above the town.

After dropping our bags, the woman at the front desk gave us a location for parking and restaurant. Over her head I saw a wood carving of a squirrel playing hockey.

That was interesting. She told me the squirrel is the unofficial mascot for Cortina.

I later saw him on a building and was able to procure a small version of the sticker for one of my squirrel houses back home

While parking I saw what appeared to be the construction of a bobsled course. That is weird, I thought. Who builds a bobsled course. It’s like seeing a ski jump; the only reason it is there is because that town hosted the Olympics at some time in the past. As it turns out Cortina was hosting the Olympics in just a few months and I had no idea. We parked near the construction of another Olympics building and walked around the town

We stopped for dinner at a German restaurant

We were so close to the Austrian border, and this area was actually part of Austria a little over 100 years ago that you hardly knew you were in Italy at all. Mostly Austrian flags and writing in German, with meals like Goulash.

I thought this guy was interesting. Kinda looked like he had his legs on backwards with those stylish jeans of his

Walked the town a bit before heading back to hotel for the night. A little too fancy of a place for me. Would prefer more of a 1-stoplight village if I did it over.

The next morning we awoke to clear skies.

Headed off to a loop hike at Tre Cime di Lavaredo. I actually had to reserve a parking spot for this hike 1 week in advance and it’s a good thing I did as they stopped us 3 times along the way to ensure we had reservation

Basically it was a roughly 7 mile hike that circled 3 large rocks, with a stop at a hut every few miles. The visibility was poor when we started but eventually cleared up a bit. I was not complaining as the clouds and fog added depth and mystery to the visuals.

Alltrails Route

Amy mentioned to me that we were planning on getting rain that afternoon. I replied not to worry, “By then we will be all tucked in like 2 chipmunks in a washcloth.” I had adopted this verbiage because we were currently raising orphaned baby chipmunks back home and their favorite pastime was snuggling up under a towel for a nap

Even when we released them into the yard they clamored to get back to their comfort zone. One night we left a towel on the table of the porch and one of them jumped up and tucked himself in for the night. I was not doing a good job of preparing them for “life on the outside” Not a surprise as the past 2 weeks they had been living in Barbie houses I picked up from the local recycle shop

Back to the hike. We got to the 1st refugio in good shape and the skies were agreeable. Everywhere you looked were incredible views.

We finished up with some food at the final Refugio by the car

It was about this time that Amy got a message from a relative that her mom was in the hospital with this image attached

Eventually we found out she was fine and this picture was taken while she was sleeping. At that point the cryptic text with the death image became quite funny. We ended up with pizza at the hotel for dinner. I think I had pizza 6x in Italy. Thankfully it was lighter than our version back in the states. Leave it to Americans to take a foreign favorite and supersize it with mountains of cheese and dough. Italian food is not necessarily healthy as it's loaded with carbs, but you did not see any fat people walking around. It’s not the “Mediterranean Diet”, but portion control seems to do alright for these folk.

The next day we had another day of driving and hiking. We checked out of the hotel and made our way to Gardena. The direct route was closed for a bicycle race so the 1.5 hour drive turned into a 3 hour quest through unending hairpin turns that left us both nauseous.

We took 2 Gondolas up to the Instagram spot of Seceda.

That should cover that angle and on to the hike Alltrails route

This hike was about 6 miles with all the great views we were able to get yesterday

We cut the hike short. Instead of hiking back up to the gondolas, Amy decided we would take a chairlift back up the top. Before we got on the chairlift Amy looked at me with a straight face and asked, “can you take the chairlift up and get the car and come get me?” After I realized she was serious, I also realized she had absolutely no clue where we were. We needed to take this chairlift up to the top and then take 2 gondolas down the other side to get back to our car. There was no option for getting the car at the top of this chairlift. I kinda wanted to agree just to watch it all play out while I was sipping a spritzer at the top mountain hut while she waited for the car to pull up.

We had dinner in the hotel that night and the next day drove to another gondola to hike Puez-Odle Altopiano. All trails route This was a step up as it would be about 11 miles to get back to our car, but since we took the gondala up there was not going to be much too the uphills.

A little bit of uphill after the first refugio

At one point we passed a couple who stopped for a picnic. Not only did they pull out some bread and cheese, but the guy reached into his back and grabbed a full-size bread knife. Always come prepared.