Wake up this morning with some anxiety about our football tickets being received and then getting them printed. I check my email and the tickets have arrived late last night, but we need them printed. The San Cassiano Tourist Office opens at 10:00 and I forward the email to them with an explanation. Also, at 10:00 I phone them and the girl confirms they can print the tickets on our behalf. Yeh!!!
We have some errands to do this morning before we start our last hike of our vacation in Alta Badia. We stop first at the Tourist office to receive our printed tickets. Lana needs a couple of stamps for postcards and then mail the postcards. Plus, she had seen foot covers at a local bicycle shop and she wants to adapt them for snowshoeing. The bicycle shop is open and she purchases a pair. We stop at the bakery to pick up a goodie for the car tomorrow and some buns for lunch/dinner.
Lana here: as much as I enjoy hiking, steep up/down hill is hard on my knees!! To counter this I've started "weaving" or "slaloming" up and down the trail when needed. Despite Randy laughing at my technique, I have to say, it works for me. Going back and forth cuts down on the angle and stress on my knees. So even though I may not have the sheer muscle strength, I think my stamina is pretty good as the extra steps needed to slalom are not tiring. After six days of fairly intense hiking, I've had very little stiffness or tiredness in my legs. OK--maybe the two massages helped as well :-)
We leave for our hike at 11:00 by simply walking out our door as there is hiking route #14 that passes right by us and then up the hill/mountain. I phone the La Crusc Rifugio S. Croce and the lady believes it is about a two hour hike? It is another beautiful sunny and warm day. The first 30 minutes of our hike are pretty much straight up which I would rate at medium-high difficulty, but more towards high difficulty. The first part of the walk is in the forest so mostly shaded from the sun. Much of the path is a real trail and not an access road. By 11:30 we have joined up with hiking route #15. Some light breezes are much appreciated as we are getting hot from the exertion.
Check out the flat tops on the Dolomite peak in the distance.
This route has the usual religious iconography and at many other points along the trail.
Lana loves these purple flowers.
Hmmmm, another purple flower pic.
This is an extremely steep and narrow path through the woods.
Italian Alps in the distance.
More Italian Alps in the distance.
Early in our hike Lana takes out her ear buds and plugs into music from her iPhone. This strategy relaxes her, gives her a pace to walk to and "drowns out the screaming pain from my legs". Occasionally, she starts singing out loud--yup--she listens to music from the 80's! We were super lucky early in our walk when I stopped at a bench to wait for Lana and didn't realize my wallet had fallen out of my backpack. Just as we were leaving Lana (who always looks around before we leave and checks that we have everything with us) saw it lying in the grass behind the bench. Phew!
Dolomite peak Kreuzkofel looming above the Refugio.
We reached Refugio La Crusc-S. Croce Helligkreuz around 12:35 so a little more than 90 minutes uphill hiking to reach it. We are both a little sweaty. Lana is happy as she had a great pace and we passed four different hiking groups on the way here. One of the groups was five much younger people from Chicago, USA. Our stats were 11,200 steps and 8.25 kms.
We find a table outside to bask in the sun and enjoy the superb views. When the sun is out it is actually hot. This Refugio is at 2045 metres.
Just the right amount of sun. Picture taken by an older Italian lady who was sitting with her friends at our table. One of the ladies has a Dolomiti Passport where people collect Rifugio stamps and staple lift tickets into their passbook as mementos of all their hikes. We loved this idea and Lana wishes she would have picked up a passport when we arrived as we would have had 7-8 stamps as souvenirs from this trip.
Our lunch view--this Dolomite peak is right beside the Refugio and dramatically beautiful. It has a powerful presence.
Lana's back up plan since she didn't have a passbook--she stamped her arm at the Refugio.
Randy's lunch order of Kaiserschmarren + Bilbeeren. This is actually a German style dessert. We had this a couple of days ago on another hike. I couldn't resist. Yes, this is indeed my lunch. Not as good though as the first one we had. This one has no raisins, too much sugar, more eggy and not as fluffy and light. It was still good though. ;-)
Lana's order of Eir mit Schinken. Basically eggs and ham. The eggs are underneath and cooked just over easy. Her ingenious idea was to take bread from the accompanying bread basket and make two delicious sandwiches which we promptly inhaled!
A Radler: blend of beer and lemonade. Also known as a Shandy. I think it tastes pretty good. This washed down my lunch, er dessert...Lana drank some as well which is pretty surprising given she doesn't like beer. Lana starts laughing hysterically though as she knows beer gives people gas sometimes and says "we can smile and fart our way back to Venice".
Telephone booth in the Refuge. This is really old school.
Occasionally the sun is obscured by very dark clouds. This puts a chill into the air and everyone outside at the tables puts on another layer of clothing. Then the sun returns and everyone strips off that extra layer. We see another table enjoying an Apple cake so we decide to order one to go. As the Borg say on Star Trek "resistance is futile". The sun disappears again so we decide it is time to get going and hike back to where we came from. It is 13:45 and the lunch cost 35 Euros.
This is the apple cake we could not resist. Packaged in aluminum foil to take home.
Lana sitting on one of these benches we find on various hiking trails. Notice the built-in table in the middle--perfect for having a picnic or al fresco lunch and drinks.
Example of the narrow trail we were hiking today.
Randy on a hill with the clouds behind. It did not rain.
I don't like her that much!
Panoramic shot of Dolomite mountains on the other side of the valley below.
Somehow on the way back we miss the turn for hiking route #14. We continue on route #15 as it will take us to San Cassiano. This extends our return walk by around 30 minutes. The cool thing is we are walking high above San Cassiano so now we know what is up the hill. We come across a local dairy farm/cheese company and they had a cheese vending machine! Lana says "now I've seen everything!!" Plus, yogurt and some drinks available to buy. They had at least a dozen different flavours of cheese!
Vending machine with cheese.
Lüch da Pcëi - vending machine owners/cheese trade.
We are back to our apartment by 15:45. Still a beautiful sunny warm day. Stats for the day: 24,500 steps and 17.3 kms. Pretty decent day of hiking and scenery and food and weather...We checked our weather app and the high today was 18 degrees Celsius.
We want to treat ourselves to a nice dinner tonight. We make reservations for 19:00 at Tana dell'Orso in Badia. Lana did the research for a place that wasn't a Michelin star restaurant, but was highly rated and not casual. Alta Badia has a number of Michelin starred restaurants. We wanted to keep this trip fairly casual in terms of dining. This will be our last decent dinner on our trip. The food in Alta Badia has been as good as advertised.
Online pic of Tana dell'Orso
Even with GPS, not the easiest place to find in Badia. We drove up onto the hill/mountain to find this unique restaurant. There are three separate rooms each with their own motif. We were in the teddy bear room. When we arrived we were the only table occupied. Weird to be surrounded by teddy bears of all shapes and sizes. The menu has classic Italian and the local Ladin specialties. Lana is on a mission to have a pasta dish. Within a short while the restaurant really begins to fill up. There is another server, but this place is disorganized. The food is fantastic, but service poor.
Teddy Bear room.
Our appetizer of ham, smoked sausage and three different types of delicious cheeses. A very simple starter plate, but one we should use when entertaining. I ordered a glass of Gewürztraminer and it paired well with the apple plate and my entrée.
Lana's order of nettle-flavoured tagliatelle with fresh chantrelle mushrooms. Lana loved this dish.
Randy's order of pork with fried potatoes. Very delicious!
One of our tasks was placing each of our 18 wine bottles into the plastic wine skins. We need to get everything packed tonight in readiness for an early departure back to Venice. Our goal is to be in our car before 08:00 to travel back to Marco Polo airport to return our rental car and then get our room. A great meal to end the day.
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