Alpe di Siusi Plateau to St. Ulrich

I am sad to say that we have lost all the pictures of today's hike. . .I am not sure where they are but they have been deleted from the camera :-(!

The hike took us through green pastures and undulating terrain. . . horses and cows scattered the landscape!  We traveled through the Val Gardena , one of the most expansive alpine meadowlands in Europe!  We stopped at the famous Plattkofel Hutte, where we had the BEST apple strudel that I have ever eaten!!!  We then hiked about an hour more through the meadows and woods of the Alpe di Siusi plateau.  We had a wonderful lunch and then hike across the plateau to the cable car that brought us down to St. Ulrich.

We had time to shower and then walk through the very cute town of St. Ulrich.  There are a series of pedestrian only streets that have cute shops and cafes.

I have to say that we have experienced some AMAZING cuisine this trip!  Every breakfast, lunch and dinner has been more delicious than the last!  Tonight we went to a restaurant that made wonderful thin crust pizza. . . I was in heaven!

We are now in the portion of Italy that is known as the South Tyrol.  Three languages are spoken here, Italian, German, and Ladin (Romansch).  Ladin has its origins to 15 BC, when Druso, a stepson of the Roman Emperor Augustus, conquered this region.  Ladin is a combination of ancient Latin and mountain Celtic.  Napoleon conquered South Tyrol and placed it under the Austrian Habsburgs.  They ruled here until it was returned to Italy after WWI.  in 1938 an agreement between Hitler and Mussolini provided for extensive forced migration of the German-speaking population to Germany of other parts of Italy.  in 1943, the South Tyrol was occupied by Germany, but returned to Italian rule in 1945 at the end of WWII.  Today the South Tyrol is 70% German speaking, 26% Italian speaking and 4% Ladin speaking.

We have tried some of the regional cuisine during our stay.  Speck is very popular, it is lean pork that has been cured with juniper berries and other spices, wood smoked and then aged for months.  It is pretty good and I like in a dish with sunny side up eggs and potatoes!  The other thing we tried was Canederli which are bread dumplings with cheese, speck, or spinach in them.  They are the size of a tennis ball!  They are served in broth or butter!

Well tomorrow we leave here and travel to Corvara.  We are staying at a 5 Star hotel so it will be a time for a little rejuvenation!  

Ascent to Rifugio Alpe de Tires

Today we hiked up to a Rifugio (Mountain Hut) and spent the night in the dormitory style room with bunk beds.  There were two hike options, both challenging but one was longer than the other.  Jeanna took the longer one and I chose the shorter one.  I started out on a trail that went through woodlands and pastures of the Tschamin Tal (Tal= valley in German).  It was a beautiful hike with trees and streams.

Our Group

Directional signs. . .I always laugh at their times to destination!

Beautiful stream

Ellie drinking from fresh stream fountain

This was the Hohen Steg, a spring that was once buried in a landslide.  It was finally uncovered and is supposed to be known for it's healing effects!  The legend of this stream is that a man named Robert, the old panel-beater of Tiers, was healed from his upset stomach from drinking this healing water.  I wouldn't put this is the category of miracles but I did drink some of the healing waters just in case.  (Our guide, Stefano told us there was no giardia in Italy so I thought it should be safe :-) )

 I loved this framed view of the Rosengarten Mountains.  After this lovely shot the path took a turn for the worse!  The beautiful called ended in a horseshoe of mountain peaks and spires, there looked to be no way out. . .I caught a glimpse of a red shirt that Iwa was wearing winding its way straight up the rocks.  There were cables and iron steps that you had to climb up about 1500 ft.  I would have taken pictures but I was hanging out for dear life and thought that keeping 3 points of contact at all times was more important than a photo.

 This is Carole and I after the harrowing rock climb. . .glad to be at the end of that and we could see the rifugio in the distance!

 This is a picture of our Rifugio Alpe de Tires. . . this was a beautiful hut.  We had hot showers and good food!  The bunk beds were okay. . . but you really have to NEED to go the bathroom to go down the ladder in the middle of the night!

The stunning view from the porch of the rifugio!  We had a great afternoon of chatting and playing a competitive game of Scotch Rummy!  A great day on the mountain!

Hike to Rifugio Torre di Pisa Latemarhutte

what it is...is a place where I can return to myself. It's enough of a scramble to get to...that the energy expended is significant, and it translates into a change in my body chemistry and my psychological chemistry and my heart chemistry...” 
― Jay Salter

The picture below is of Iwa, Carole and I having a little fun before we headed out on our hike!  We love our hiking pals!  

The view of the mountains behind our hotel

 Today's hike was a great hike that gained 2,400 feet in elevation to a rifuggio (hut) that had magnificent views!  If you can enlarge the above map, we took trail 516 to the refugio and then came down 516 to 22 back to the ski lift.  I am thankful for the ski lift that brought us to the starting point :-)! The ascent was fairly steep!  I was thanking my trainer , Sue for the good training we put in this year in Phoenix.  I am in much better shape this year and even though the hike is lung busting I am enjoying it more!  I listen to my iPod most of the hike - it takes my mind off the "OMG, what the hell and I am doing" and the "I think I am going to die" thoughts.  I hit a playlist and hit shuffle and off I go - there is a weird coincidence in the songs that are playing and the terrain I am hiking.  On a particularly gravel-ly section I hear "The Earth moves under my feet" and then on a narrow straight up section some song about "Suicide Alley". . .it makes me almost laugh out loud!

Which way do we go?

 The next few pictures try to give you an idea of the slope we are traveling . . . .it can never do the ascents or descents justice I think!

 Jeanna is so great and such a good sport when I ask her to go climb that rock and let me take your picture!  She always kids me about my ulterior motives when I ask her to just take a few steps backwards to I can get the best shot :-)!

Jeanna "The Thinker"

Practicing my balancing moves!

Deb and Iwa

The inside of the peaks 

You may wonder what the mountain looks like on the other side of the stately peaks. . . .it is almost always some scree filled bowl that makes traversing a really fun!!

 This is the Rifugio Torre di Pisa Latemarhutte where we had lunch.  It was quite a harrowing trail to the hut.  We were literally walking on the side of some rock spires to get there!  It is also amazing that they provide a great lunch and even a bathroom!!  After a good lunch it was time to start the descent (my least favorite part). . .it was quite steep and rocky along the 516 trail.  The walk along the 22 trail was pleasant and we even saw some cows with their ringing bells!

 The saw popped out for a few minutes and we took the opportunity to have a little rest and some water!

This photo tries to show how far we traveled on the ascent. . . if you look to the top of the mountain range and see the "dip" in the range to the left of the far right peak. . . that is where Jeanna was when we took the "Thinker" picture!  We still had about 40-50 minutes from there to the hut!

Tonight we are going to a restaurant to have a wonderful multi-course dinner.  Tomorrow we will be hiking to a "hut" to spend the night. . . we only take what we need for sleeping one night.  So there will be no blogging until Friday when we get to the hotel.

I am off to take a well deserved and needed shower!  Ciao!

Otzi the Iceman

Today we woke up to pouring rain.  I decided to skip the skin drenching hike and take the option to go into Bolzano to the Otzi Museum.  This might not have been the best decision I could have made. . . perhaps a massage and a quick 9 holes on the mountain course would have been better.  However, how many people actually get to see a 5,000 year old mummy!!!  The museum was very well laid out and was very informative.  Scientists have done a gajillion tests on Otzi to learn as much about him as possible.  They can even tell you what he had for his last supper!

He is maintained in the same conditions as he was found. . . encased in ice!  They keep the temperature of the room at -6 degrees Celsius and spray him with sterile water to keep a nice coat of ice on his skin.

Bolzano, Italy is a very large town of 90,000. . . it was a little jarring being back into the city after a couple of days in the mountains.  Now we are in a region that has a lot of German influence, German is on all the streets signs as well as Italian.  Even on our restaurant tonight served spaetzle!

Tomorrow we are going on a fabulous hike tomorrow high up on the mountain that promises breathtaking views!  The weather should also be clear as well making hiking more pleasurable!

If you are interested in learning more about Otzi check out this website:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ötzi_the_Iceman

Venice to San Martino di Castrozza

We left the busy city of Venice and headed in our water taxi to meet the rest of our Wilderness Group at the Marco Polo Airport at 10am on Sunday morning.  After brief introductions we piled into two vans to begin the first leg of journey to Bassano del Grappa where we would have lunch and tour a Grappa distillery museum.  I have no picture of any of these events because my camera was left in the van :-(!  Anyway, the town was very cute and had a nice wooden bridge and there was some sort of Cod Festival going on. . .not too sure the details on that!  Lunch was in a nice restaurant and they were also preparing for a wedding so that was fun to see.  We had some prosecco with fresh strawberries!  YUM!!!  Then they brought our trays of hors d'ouevres (which Jeanna thought was lunch), then we sat and they brought a tray of meats (Jeanna again thought it was lunch), then a polenta dish (Jeanna again. . . ) and finally some pasta dish.  There was a dessert as well, but we were in a food coma by this point!

After lunch we headed to the Poli Museo della Grappa and learned about the distillation of grappa.  For those of you who have never heard of grappa it is distilled from the left over grape-pomace from wine making!  It takes 220lbs of grape-pomace to make 3-7 liters of grappa.  We then had a tasting of different kinds of grappa.  The basic is colorless and has a 40% alcohol content - pretty much it tastes like jet fuel.  Although to be fair I have not tasted jet fuel, but in my mind I think they are one and the same!  The next had a amber color because it was aged in a wooden barrel for over a year.  I am going to tell you that the aging doesn't reduce the alcohol content or the taste of jet fuel.  Then there were the infused grappas - blueberry and honey. . . better tasting.  The last was the chocolate grappa. . . now we are talking, give me some vanilla gelato with that and I could be a grappa fan!

We then got back into the van and headed up into the mountains on VERY winding roads!  Did I mention the roads had a lot of curves?  After an hour and half of motion sickness producing curves we arrived in the very alpine city of San Martino di Castrozza.  A very quaint ski town surrounded by fabulous spires of rock.

Our Hotel

 After settling in our room, we decided to take a walk into town to check it out. . .luckily we didn't have our credit cards with us so it was strictly window shopping!

A lovely stream on the way to town.

Jeanna smiling because she LOVES the mountains!

Who dressed us?  We just do this naturally :-)

You can see same of the peaks behind the clouds

Jeanna kissing the town troll for good weather!

Looking towards the mountains!

 We had a nice dinner at the hotel and tried to get sleep early in anticipation for the first hiking day.  The first hike is always one of the hardest days. . .coming from sea level and then hiking up some 2,000 ft when you start around 5000ft is a real lung buster!  The following are some pictures of the hiking terrain we experienced on our first day.

Up we go!

Beautiful Mountains Lakes

Resting a little on the first up!

You can see the peaks in the background through the clouds.

Happy Reluctant Hiker

Ms. Mountain Lover

 Scattered throughout these mountains are caves and trenches used by the Italians in the WWI to hold back the Austrians during the war.

Billy goats gruff :-)

Me at the top of that hill

Coming down on the way to lunch

We had a lovely extended lunch with lots and then had a 40 minute hike back to the hotel.  Tonight we are going out to dinner and then hit the bed early because tomorrow is the hardest hike.  Jeanna will need her rest. . . I will be taking the moderate hike tomorrow :-)!

Lake by our lunch spot

Final Thoughts on Venice

We are leaving Venice in the morning to meet up with the Wilderness Travel guides and start the 10 or so days of hiking.  Last night we went out to dinner at a restaurant recommended by sister, Wendy, it was called Antico Martini.  It was delicious!  The dinner started out with the cute little container pictured below with cucumber yogurt. . .very light and yummy.  

 I also had my first, but not last Bellini of the trip!  Love champagne and love even more with a little peach nectar!  The ambience was lovely, we sat on the terrace and enjoyed the cool evening temperatures!  After dinner we went to hear Interpreti Veneziani at the Chiesa di San Vidal play some Vivaldi!  The piccolo soloist was AMAZING!!!  Our friend, Carole had told us it was not to miss and she was right!  Sadly, she was stuck in Frankfort for 15 hours and missed the concert.

This morning we slept in and had scheduled massages for our pre-hike wellness (as if we need a reason) Jeanna scheduled the "Angel Special Back and Neck Treatment with Hot Pepper Cream" massage and I chose the "Thai Massage"  We arrived in the spa and were directed to our lockers, Jeanna was given the usual robe and slippers and I was handed basically workout clothes. . . ah oh!  I knew the massage was to include stretching but now I was a little nervous.  I entered the massage room and there was large gym mat on the floor. . . let's just say I have been pulled and stretched in ways that I could have never imagined!!!  I think I am 3 inches taller!

We then took our boat over to Venice and met up with our hiking buddies, Iwa, Carole, and Rob.  We spent the afternoon eating and walking through the parts of Venice we had yet to explore.

This was a more residential area across the Grand Canal from San Marco.  You can see the laundry being hung out to dry and the residents boats parked in front of their homes.

Jeanna in front of the Michelangelo exhibit trying out his wing invention!

Jeanna and I on the Academia Bridge

After walking we were parched and decided to head to the iconic Harry's Bar to have an original Bellini! (Just like the hero did in Hemingway's Across the River and into the Trees.

Bellini toast!

So arrividerci Venice it has been an experience!  I would like to come back again and explore the glass factories and artisans on the island of Murano and a few things we couldn't get to this trip.  Tomorrow the real adventure begins and I am sure there will be great tales to tell in the coming days.  Hopefully we will have internet every once and awhile so I can update the blog with photos (not much commentary. . .since we basically just out one foot in front of the other :-)!  Ciao!