Our rental apartment for our week in San Cassiano had a spacious balcony with amazing views of the town and mountains. The only drawback was that it was up a steep hill so walking back to the apartment from town was a workout in and of itself.
At the base of our street was the charming parochial church of San Cassiano. You can see just how sharply the street ascends up the hill.
The Val Badia is a north-south running valley in the heart of the Dolomites. Historically, the tall mountains surrounding the valley kept its inhabitants fairly isolated. A unique culture and language (Ladin) developed in this region. Ladin is a romance language that developed as an offshoot of latin and has been spoken here for many centuries. It sounds completely different from Italian. In this part of the valley it is the first language for nearly 90% of the people born here -- meaning that many people here are tri-lingual, speaking at least Ladin, Italian, German, and sometimes English. I say "sometimes" because the staff at our hotel did not speak any English, but we managed quite well with a smattering of Italian (me) and German (Kevin) and abundant use of hand gestures. The Badia valley is a pastoral paradise, with vast stretches of green meadows dotted with farm buildings and peppered with grazing livestock.
We took the car to the nearby town of Corvara so that we could hike to some waterfalls, the Cascate del Pisciadu. The thin threads of the waterfall tumble almost unnoticed in a crevice of the Brunecker Term, a mountain on the north side of the Sella massif.
Luckily there was a trail leading right to the base of the falls. I think we could have hiked to the top but the trail looked a little iffy so we skipped that part.
After a 5-mile trek to the waterfalls and back, we stopped at Villa Eden Cioccolateria for some of the thickest "hot chocolate" we've ever had. Our server warned us in advance -- she said "It's different than the drinking kind you (Americans) know". We said no problem, bring it on. It was delicious, with a rich consistency similar to pudding.
On Tuesday we spent the day in the Lagazuoi area. First we parked and hiked up past Rifugio Scotoni to Lago Lagazuoi. This was a challenging hike with many switchbacks, but the views were incredible.
The lake at the top was pretty small and not much to write home about. Although we could see the Rifugio Lagazuoi high above us, we turned around to head back to the Scotoni hut for lunch.
This family-run rifugio had a small herd of alpaca and an adorable kitten that believed that it, too, was part of the herd.
Rifugio Scotoni is known for delicious food and it did not disappoint. We ordered the "grill plate" to share and it was absolutely one of the best meals we had on our trip. Sausages, ribs, steak, veggies, and polenta - yum!
We hiked back down to the car and then drove around to the southern side of the Laguzuoi peak so we could take the easy route to the top - the cable car. The Laguzuoi Cable car is a pretty impressive feat of engineering. The two cars each carry up to 50 passengers - one car goes up when the other comes down. The two cars whiz past each other at the halfway point with almost dizzying speed - the total ascent is 630 m (2066 ft) in 3 minutes! You can see some of the twists of the Passo Falzarego road in the valley below.
Lagazuoi is just across the valley from Cinque Torri, and like Cinque Torri it saw heavy action throughout WWI. The whole area is an open-air war museum with well-preserved tunnels, lookouts, and trails. Kevin went in one of the tunnels for a short while but neither of us had the right gear (helmet, flashlight, etc) to follow the tunnel for the full 1km length.
Instead we walked along the windy ridge and just admired the views on all sides of the Laguzuoi peak before heading back down via the cable car. You could walk down from the top but a downhill hike of 2066 feet would take way longer than 3 minutes for sure -- my knees hurt just thinking about it!
From the window of our Airbnb we can see a cable car to Piz Sorega ("piz" = "mountain"), so on Wednesday we walked over and decided to check out where it went. Imagine our surprise when it took us straight to Las Vegas.
Just kidding. It actually took us up to an expansive plateau with a bowl-shaped meadow. It all started to make sense since "Las Vegas" means "the meadows" in Spanish. This area is a big ski destination in winter, so there were many lifts and almost as many ski lodge restaurants. Luckily for us all of the lodges were open, so we managed a kind of "pub crawl" circuit around the plateau, checking in at each one along the road to see the views and have a beverage.
We tried a liquor called Bombardino for the first time. We had seen it on several menus and in some shops and wondered what it tasted like. It was similar to egg nog but very sweet and served warm. Not my cup of tea but Kevin found a new favorite drink - yeehaw!
The weather was expected to turn colder on Thursday, and our weather apps were predicting snow. "No way," we thought, "it must be a mistake -- it's only the second week of September!" On Thursday we woke up to heavy non-stop rain. We had planned for a rest day anyhow so we spent the afternoon watching Netflix. But then, sure enough, Kevin looked out the window and noticed a few flakes starting to fall.
And then they just kept falling, and falling, and falling. On Friday morning we woke up to a wintry wonderland.
We borrowed the hotel's snow shovel so Kevin could clean off the car. But without four-wheel-drive, he didn't feel much like driving a stick-shift on icy roads, and I don't blame him. Definitely not conditions we are used to in sunny Phoenix!
So instead we walked to the small museum in town dedicated to the Ladin cave bear Ursus Ladinicus, an extinct bear species that lived over 50,000 years ago. In 1987 an exploring mountaineer discovered dozens of skeletons all jumbled together in the nearby Conturines Cave. Researchers realized it was a new species distinct from other cave bears, and named it after the local Ladin people.
We knew Saturday might be tricky with all the snow because we would be driving over the Sella mountain pass to get to our next town. But luckily by late morning Saturday the snow had melted off the roads enough to make it safe for driving. So we set off, hoping to stop for a hike at Col Pradat on the way. We optimistically bought one-way tickets for the cable car, hoping to ride it up and then hike back down. But as soon as we stepped out of the cabin and were hit with the icy wind we realized that we would not be sticking to that plan. We enjoy hiking but not enough to do an unpleasant slog in frigid winds over a slushy, muddy trail.
Instead we made the best of it and had a nice lunch in the toasty warm Rifugio Col Pradat. Then we went out to the deck to enjoy the views of the snowy peaks all around us before sheepishly buying another one-way ticket back down to the valley.
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