Never quite ended the blog posting on the spiroeurope 09 trip. Whatever.
Faithful readers will remember that the 09 trip was supposed to be a bicycle ramble thru Italy for 2 months. But then April's knees started hurting so we switched to hiking in England/Italy with some biking in Sardinia.
Anyway we're back with a new Europe trip. This July, April and I will be exploring Paris and then biking thru Brittany. Hopefully her knees will hold out. If not, then it's back to Paris for croissants and cafe au lait!
The new blog is: www.spirosbikebrittany.blogspot.com
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Friday, October 2, 2009
Il Falcone
Today is our planned hiking day out of Bellagio. We catch the ferry over to Menaggio, get a taxi up to Breglia, and away we go. Our goal is Mt. Grona, 1736 meters. And there’s a rifugio about 30-60 minutes from the top. It’s a nice hike up, but hot. On our path we cross the hair-pinned road a few times. We pass by the upper houses of Breglia, we see lots of cool mushrooms along the way. We all lick the bright red mushrooms and start to hallucinate and Danny turns into a bird. Just kidding.
We pound the water and then finally hit the hut, which has no water. We have a great lunch of cheese, bread, olives, salami, some candy, some PBJ. Then we make our decision for the top. We’re slightly worried about the water situation. Supposedly the top is 60 minutes away. Figure 2 hours for round trip, we have about 1/3 of our total water left. Jayne decides to chill at the hut, and Dan/April/peter decide to go anyway. After 5 minutes there’s a fork. There’s a Via Direttissima route (direct route, straight up) and the sign indicates it’s only 30 minutes. And there’s a Via Normala route that’s longer, one hour, it curves to the right to a saddle then ascends Grona from the north. Dan’s excited about the Direttissima, April prefers the saddle route. We split up, Dan goes alone, and I accompany April up the normal route. The other factor was the clouds had rolled in and we were uncertain of the view.
Away we go.
April and I make the saddle in about 20 minutes, slightly ahead of schedule. A few minutes later we see Dan at the top. And we hear him talking to the camera as he’s decided to film himself at the top. He seemed to be enjoying himself up there, as he filmed us sitting down at the saddle. At the top, Dan meets two Italian climbers who asked him about the Direttissima route down. Dan explained it to them and told them it was only 30 minutes. Dan loves to give trail information. I know the feeling. Now the other thing is when Dan’s hiking alone, he really pushes it. You can hear his little hiking poles going click, click, click with each step. He averages around 4/mph which is really really fast.
Anyway we had no views because of the clouds so we sat there and waited for Dan to come down to us, we could see him descending our way. So we all head down, it goes quickly. We get back to Jayne in about 20 minutes, she had taken a little nap. About 5 minutes later the two Italians pull in to the rifugio. They don’t speak any English, but they’re very surprised that Dan made it down the longer way faster than they did on the Direttissima.
Now here comes what turns out to be a key moment in Dan’s life. I mean super important.
The Italian waves his wings and declares Dan must be like Il Falcone.
Dan gives a little smile, then it really starts to sink in. He’s not “smoky pants” anymore, he’s a freaking Falcon!
So a little history is necessary to understand this incident and all that follows. When people hike the Appalachian Trail the whole way, they’re called “through-hikers”. And many of the though-hikers get trail names; examples half-gallon, rainman, the coyote, cascades girl, whatever. So when Dan and his kids did the NH portion of the AT, his kids gave him then trail name of “smoky pants”. That’s because he was pouring lots of Gold Bond down his pants to prevent jock rash, and when he walked, little clouds of talc powder would sometimes puff out of his pants. Nice.
Ok, so here he is in the Alps, soaring over the mountains, and now he’s become Il Falcone.
And just so you know, Dan decides he’s not just Il Falconi. He’s IIIIIIIL FAAAALLCCOOOOONNEEEE!!!!!! He takes to pronouncing it with a low guttural drawn out snarl. It takes him about 5 seconds to get it all out. It sounds like he’s being introduced as a professional wrestler. Now weighing at in 147 pounds from Manchester, NH,, IIIILL FAALLCCOOOONNEEE!
Often it’s followed up with a low villainous smirky ripple of HE-HE-HE. So just a new trail name would be fine. In fact we’re all happy for him. Who wants to be known as smoky pants?
Furthermore in a moment of deep Buddhist insight I had given myself an occasional nickname of PEM for his trip. The E standing for equanimous. The M for Mark. None of us can quite figure out what happened to the S. But anyway in moments of stress when we need pure unadulterated equanimity, I become PEM, the level-headed one without any cravings or aversions.
Well now Dan had a really cool name, Il Falcone. Like I said, that’s good.
But then he proceeded to ride that thing like there was no tomorrow! Dan had disappeared. Il Falcone was everywhere, in every sentence, as only Dan or maybe POC can hammer home when they get locked on to a phrase.
Il falcone is soaring over the mountains.
Il Falcone doesn’t need stairs he’ll fly up them.
Il falcone will scratch your eyes out with his talons.
Il Falcone’s people will take care of the connections in Milan.
Il Falcone doesn’t need food.
Are you talking to Il Falcone?
Il Falcone will swoop down on you if you don’t watch out.
Il Falcone is talking to some people about the movie rights.
Il Facone will be getting a new Falcon tattoo.
We’re eating breakfast on the piazza and there’s Il Falcone outside the glass wall waving his wings. I’m not making this up.
Of course he’s now referring to himself in the third person.
And it doesn’t just end there, it seem he’s adopting this persona in more dimensions. Perhaps by night he becomes a stiletto specialista who works night jobs out of Marseille? Maybe it’s the Europe thing, he’s hanging around the train station with his dark glasses on looking every inch a spymaster from a John le Carre novel.
Sigh.
We all threaten to pound him if he keeps it up but of course there’s no stopping him, he’s past being on a roll, he’s a new man.
I expect you’ll be seeing big changes in the man previously known as Dan O’Connor when he returns to his old life in Manchester.
Dan O’Connor is long gone.
Il Falcone will be returning.
Perhaps he won’t even use the plane for his return journey?
PS – It is a pretty cool name.
PEM.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Varenna, Lake Como
Time to head to Varenna and Bellagio to hang out with the Beautiful People for some R+R on Lake Como. We board the train in venice, we bought first class tickets for the large seats, it was only a few bucks more. We see we’re on compartment #2, it’s the first train section we see, so we jump on, find our seats, there’s a guy in one of them, we think about kicking him out but instead we all sit in a 4-pack of seats, we figure if we get kicked out then we’ll kick him out. But for now we’ll cut him some slack. Some more people board and also sit in our reserved seats. Hmm. Finally it dawns on us, maybe we’re in the wrong compartment. Then we realize that big #2 on the outside was not the compartment number, but an indicator for second-class. Wangsters! We haul off our luggage and rush down to the first class compartments just in time before the train leaves.
We get to Milan. The Milan train station is awesome, it’s huge and imposing; I think it was built by the Fascists, it certainly looks that way. Then we board the train to Varenna. Jayne has this monstrous green suitcase that takes two people to get it into the overhead rack, and then it sticks out about 1/3 of its width. So we man-handle it up there and take a nice ride along Lake Como up to Varenna. The train stops and Dan and I engage in hand-hand combat to get Big Green down, and some old buck is signaling us to hurry up. April pushes past me and leads the way off, and as she’s getting off, the doors start to close. Dan sneaks out with Big Green, I grab the doors before they close, push them open again and fight my way out, and then they close and there’s Jayne stuck on the train. She has no money, no ID, no idea where she is or where the train might be going. She’s got this dumb ass, hopeless and stunned look on her face as she realizes if this train pulls out, she might never see us again! Ha-ha. So I grab the door again and she and I pull them open a small amount. She struggles through and jumps off right as the train pulls out. We all get a good laugh and Jayne realizes she better start carrying some money at least.
We taxi to our hotel; it used to be an old monastery ½ way up the hillside slightly out of town. April made sure we got the highest rooms, and we have to take two funiculars and an elevator just to get up to our rooms. I use my room chit, even though we just stay in my assigned room. These are fantastic rooms. It’s like we’re in an Falcon’s nest (a little foreshadowing here) overlooking the lake/town.
Varenna is very small. Not much to do. But the area is so beautiful and peaceful and romantic, you easily fall into a pattern of just chilling. Katie and Adam spent a week of their honeymoon here; and from what I understand they didn’t go on any hikes or anything, they probably focused on the “romantic” aspect of the area! We were hoping that AMORE pixie dust settled on us too!!!
The next day we took a ferry a few miles north to Belluno and had a hike planned back to our village on the Sentiere Vendante, an ancient walking path that stays about 100-200 meters above the water. Since it’s Varenna we got off to a late start, we hit Belluno about 12:30 to start the hike, but as Dan scouted for the start of the walk, April and Jayne found a small hidden Trattoria in a back alley that was filled with Italians having their Sunday lunch. No Americans in there. No Rick Steves books in sight. Of course we had to try it. At first an old lady indicated we needed reservations, but we weren’t buying it since there were open tables. So we just stood there and when she realized we weren’t leaving she decided to set us a table. Dan seems a little anxious but the rest of us were psyched. We sat there for awhile as the staff figured out who was going to deal with the Americanos, but finally one women took up the challenge. There was no written menu, the waitress just described items to us. She brought us a sample of the darker pasta. It was fantastic, April, Jane and I all ordered pasta dishes as Primis, I had some red wine, we had salads, then we got a shared fish platter. All superb. Dan didn’t even eat as he felt we had been eating about 2X the amount of food we needed over the past few days. He was probably only slightly off in his observation.
So we finally close down the Trattoria and hit the trail about 3:00. Sort of a late start. The waitress’s little girl walks us a few blocks to show us the start of the trail, we go uphill for about 10 minutes the realize we’re walking right into a Pumpkin festival at the top of the village. Sweet! They’re weighing huge pumpkins. It’s like a mini-Glendi. April smells some pumpkin doughnuts, of course we have to have some. I buy some tickets, April waits in the food line, and we sit and enjoy the noise, music, the people, the view. Dan is sort of like a bird with his wings clipped (again some foreshadowing), he thought he was going on a hiking vacation in Europe, and it seems to have transformed into a food tour. Did he forget he was traveling with the Jayne and Peter?
We briefly discuss heading down to catch the boat back to Varenna, but no, we stick to the hike. It was really nice. A beautiful old path winding through the hills along the coastline. We get to the castle above Varenna, it’s 5:45 PM and only have 15 minutes to tour the site, but we get a discount on the tickets. As we rush in, we turn a corner, I was in the lead, I figure there’s no one behind us, so I let out a gigantic fart. I mean this was a real world-class explosion; loud, resonant, impactful. The kind that seems to project a slight shock-wave. Unbeknownst to me some prim, nicely dressed, middle-aged Italian women had forgotten her kid’s jackets in the castle so she had rushed up behind us and settled into our little line of travelers. Well I guess that was a bit of a shock for that poor women, instantly she split off the path to the right, D/J/A all fell onto a stone wall squealing like kids in school where you have to laugh and the teacher’s pissed and you’re trying to hold it in but you can’t. Ha-ha!
Author’s comment here: it may seem like there’s a surprising amount of commentary on food and farts in this Blog, but what did you expect from the son of Nick Spiro?
That night we got back so late and had eaten so much we cancelled our reservations we had at a nice restaurant and the boys went for pizza to-go while the girls slept. We woke them up, fed them some pizza, then tucked them again for a good night’s sleep! Pretty much true.
Our last day in Varenna we just chilled, walked around, Dan took a few work calls, we napped, did some internet and thought about our dinner meal. If we’re not hiking we’re mostly eating or planning our next meal. We had reservations at La Vista, supposed to be very nice; in fact as we sat down Dan felt he had to give a little lecture to the group about how nice the setting was and this certainly was not the kind of place where we could be gassing up. It was on a beautiful terrace, superb meal, more creative and sophisticated than the regular Trattorias. We had a delicious goose pate and arugula salad, minestrone soup, some pesto/cottage cheese raviolis, and I had a brilliant osso bucco with risotto, best risotto of the trip so far. Then we had desserts/tea; about ½ of the people still remained, it was just a magical evening and setting, the lights were twinkling, everyone was immensely pleased with their meal, their company, the chef, the waiters; the quintessential romantic, serene after-dinner glow. Then RIIIIP, sure enough someone at our table blows a huge fart. The entire terrazzo halts their conversation, there’s that nervous quiet pause, the magic is shattered.
Ok so who’s the culprit? I’m sure if the readers had to place money on this question, 90% would place it on either Peter or Jayne. But no, they’d be wrong, the Spiros were clean. April? Sure she’s had some problems controlling all her body functions. But demure little April at such a wonderful spot? Nope, not a chance. She knows to wait for the walk home. Yup, you guessed it, Mr. Let-Me-Warn-Everyone himself, Dan O’C, for some reason thought he was letting out a little puffer, when out came a dragon’s roar. Dan seemed thoroughly surprised, then tried to argue that no one heard it; many of the patrons began to leave at that point. Sigh. Anyway it was right then that we taught Dan, and the entire group, the usually reliable cough and fart trick. When it’s well executed the simultaneous cough will usually mask almost any fart. Of course there’s always the danger of a swing and a miss, the cough coming too early or late for the retort. Beginners sometimes have this problem. Anyway we instituted the new cough rules that evening. So far it’s been working pretty well. Although sometimes Jayne seems to go into a coughing fit as she tried to cover up a prolonged sequence.
Well enough of that. The next day we headed out to Bellagio, the Pearl of Lake Como.
Up next Il Falcone.
We get to Milan. The Milan train station is awesome, it’s huge and imposing; I think it was built by the Fascists, it certainly looks that way. Then we board the train to Varenna. Jayne has this monstrous green suitcase that takes two people to get it into the overhead rack, and then it sticks out about 1/3 of its width. So we man-handle it up there and take a nice ride along Lake Como up to Varenna. The train stops and Dan and I engage in hand-hand combat to get Big Green down, and some old buck is signaling us to hurry up. April pushes past me and leads the way off, and as she’s getting off, the doors start to close. Dan sneaks out with Big Green, I grab the doors before they close, push them open again and fight my way out, and then they close and there’s Jayne stuck on the train. She has no money, no ID, no idea where she is or where the train might be going. She’s got this dumb ass, hopeless and stunned look on her face as she realizes if this train pulls out, she might never see us again! Ha-ha. So I grab the door again and she and I pull them open a small amount. She struggles through and jumps off right as the train pulls out. We all get a good laugh and Jayne realizes she better start carrying some money at least.
We taxi to our hotel; it used to be an old monastery ½ way up the hillside slightly out of town. April made sure we got the highest rooms, and we have to take two funiculars and an elevator just to get up to our rooms. I use my room chit, even though we just stay in my assigned room. These are fantastic rooms. It’s like we’re in an Falcon’s nest (a little foreshadowing here) overlooking the lake/town.
Varenna is very small. Not much to do. But the area is so beautiful and peaceful and romantic, you easily fall into a pattern of just chilling. Katie and Adam spent a week of their honeymoon here; and from what I understand they didn’t go on any hikes or anything, they probably focused on the “romantic” aspect of the area! We were hoping that AMORE pixie dust settled on us too!!!
The next day we took a ferry a few miles north to Belluno and had a hike planned back to our village on the Sentiere Vendante, an ancient walking path that stays about 100-200 meters above the water. Since it’s Varenna we got off to a late start, we hit Belluno about 12:30 to start the hike, but as Dan scouted for the start of the walk, April and Jayne found a small hidden Trattoria in a back alley that was filled with Italians having their Sunday lunch. No Americans in there. No Rick Steves books in sight. Of course we had to try it. At first an old lady indicated we needed reservations, but we weren’t buying it since there were open tables. So we just stood there and when she realized we weren’t leaving she decided to set us a table. Dan seems a little anxious but the rest of us were psyched. We sat there for awhile as the staff figured out who was going to deal with the Americanos, but finally one women took up the challenge. There was no written menu, the waitress just described items to us. She brought us a sample of the darker pasta. It was fantastic, April, Jane and I all ordered pasta dishes as Primis, I had some red wine, we had salads, then we got a shared fish platter. All superb. Dan didn’t even eat as he felt we had been eating about 2X the amount of food we needed over the past few days. He was probably only slightly off in his observation.
So we finally close down the Trattoria and hit the trail about 3:00. Sort of a late start. The waitress’s little girl walks us a few blocks to show us the start of the trail, we go uphill for about 10 minutes the realize we’re walking right into a Pumpkin festival at the top of the village. Sweet! They’re weighing huge pumpkins. It’s like a mini-Glendi. April smells some pumpkin doughnuts, of course we have to have some. I buy some tickets, April waits in the food line, and we sit and enjoy the noise, music, the people, the view. Dan is sort of like a bird with his wings clipped (again some foreshadowing), he thought he was going on a hiking vacation in Europe, and it seems to have transformed into a food tour. Did he forget he was traveling with the Jayne and Peter?
We briefly discuss heading down to catch the boat back to Varenna, but no, we stick to the hike. It was really nice. A beautiful old path winding through the hills along the coastline. We get to the castle above Varenna, it’s 5:45 PM and only have 15 minutes to tour the site, but we get a discount on the tickets. As we rush in, we turn a corner, I was in the lead, I figure there’s no one behind us, so I let out a gigantic fart. I mean this was a real world-class explosion; loud, resonant, impactful. The kind that seems to project a slight shock-wave. Unbeknownst to me some prim, nicely dressed, middle-aged Italian women had forgotten her kid’s jackets in the castle so she had rushed up behind us and settled into our little line of travelers. Well I guess that was a bit of a shock for that poor women, instantly she split off the path to the right, D/J/A all fell onto a stone wall squealing like kids in school where you have to laugh and the teacher’s pissed and you’re trying to hold it in but you can’t. Ha-ha!
Author’s comment here: it may seem like there’s a surprising amount of commentary on food and farts in this Blog, but what did you expect from the son of Nick Spiro?
That night we got back so late and had eaten so much we cancelled our reservations we had at a nice restaurant and the boys went for pizza to-go while the girls slept. We woke them up, fed them some pizza, then tucked them again for a good night’s sleep! Pretty much true.
Our last day in Varenna we just chilled, walked around, Dan took a few work calls, we napped, did some internet and thought about our dinner meal. If we’re not hiking we’re mostly eating or planning our next meal. We had reservations at La Vista, supposed to be very nice; in fact as we sat down Dan felt he had to give a little lecture to the group about how nice the setting was and this certainly was not the kind of place where we could be gassing up. It was on a beautiful terrace, superb meal, more creative and sophisticated than the regular Trattorias. We had a delicious goose pate and arugula salad, minestrone soup, some pesto/cottage cheese raviolis, and I had a brilliant osso bucco with risotto, best risotto of the trip so far. Then we had desserts/tea; about ½ of the people still remained, it was just a magical evening and setting, the lights were twinkling, everyone was immensely pleased with their meal, their company, the chef, the waiters; the quintessential romantic, serene after-dinner glow. Then RIIIIP, sure enough someone at our table blows a huge fart. The entire terrazzo halts their conversation, there’s that nervous quiet pause, the magic is shattered.
Ok so who’s the culprit? I’m sure if the readers had to place money on this question, 90% would place it on either Peter or Jayne. But no, they’d be wrong, the Spiros were clean. April? Sure she’s had some problems controlling all her body functions. But demure little April at such a wonderful spot? Nope, not a chance. She knows to wait for the walk home. Yup, you guessed it, Mr. Let-Me-Warn-Everyone himself, Dan O’C, for some reason thought he was letting out a little puffer, when out came a dragon’s roar. Dan seemed thoroughly surprised, then tried to argue that no one heard it; many of the patrons began to leave at that point. Sigh. Anyway it was right then that we taught Dan, and the entire group, the usually reliable cough and fart trick. When it’s well executed the simultaneous cough will usually mask almost any fart. Of course there’s always the danger of a swing and a miss, the cough coming too early or late for the retort. Beginners sometimes have this problem. Anyway we instituted the new cough rules that evening. So far it’s been working pretty well. Although sometimes Jayne seems to go into a coughing fit as she tried to cover up a prolonged sequence.
Well enough of that. The next day we headed out to Bellagio, the Pearl of Lake Como.
Up next Il Falcone.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Lost again!
So we have a few days in Cortina. We’re all happy to be in the quintessential Alp-style village. There are patisseries, cafes, little shops; it’s sweet.
As we walk around the town we find a few fashion-oriented outdoor stores. You know the places that focus more on snazzy outfits than real mountaineering gear. Dan buys a “North Face Cortina” shirt. So now he’s got a couple of Dolomiti hikes under his belt, he’s got his new North Face t-shirt, so he’s feeling more and more like The Man. Then we find the real deal, the Italian Guiding Association headquarters, where all the tough alpine guys hangout for discussing weather, routes, etc. You need a guide for a 5.10 grade pitch directly up Tre Cime? This is where you come. Soon we find Dan lingering out front giving advice to tourists and newbies who come walking into the shop. April thought I was obnoxious giving advice on the Coast-Coast but Dan quickly moves beyond that stage of “know-it-all”. He sees the people later in the town and he’s still giving them advice! Ha-ha!
Next day we head out after a late start (some great bakeries) to hike around the Tre Cime (3 awesome spires right in a row).
As before Dan is the Pilot, I’m the co-pilot, Navigator. Now before I get to the full story here, let it be known we had squat for maps. We had one of the hand-drawn ski area type of maps, nothing to scale, no detail. It turns out April had the right map but it was in her pack in the trunk, why? I have no idea. We manage to find the right road out of town and head to Misurina. We get to Misurina, perfect. We’re feeling pretty good about the driving and the navigating. Now we’re looking for Rifugio Arunzo, after which there should be a toll road right to the Tre Cime. We come to a fork, it’s not a stop sign, we’re still moving, we see a sign in front of us, the top two entries pointing left are Austria and Dobbiaco. Certainly we didn’t want to go there. The bottom sign says Arunzo. I say, “go right”. Dan has already started turning that way. Hmm, complicit in the key moment? Now we’re feeling good.
So I start to tell a story from the book Outliers. And this story is about plane crashes, how they’re a series of small errors, and how in certain cultures which don’t speak up and question authority (eg Korean) the small errors can add up, and then the accident happens. Then the story morphs into listening and leadership and how you need good training, and of course we’re having a grand old time. Well it turns out we were doing exactly what I was describing in my story. We had a series of small indicators that would clearly show we’re on the wrong path but we never even noticed! Our road had started to go downhill, but we should have been going uphill to some high peaks. The road straightened out when we should have hit hairpin turns. We hit a lake and a stream heading downhill our way. Our little excursion seemed to be going much further than we had anticipated. So who knows, maybe the story was so great, maybe we were enjoying the ride so much, maybe we were relying on the Pilot or the Navigator too much, maybe we liked the scenery too much. Whatever. We finally hit a fairly large town, Arunzo, this is good, right? We merrily drive thru looking for the turnoff to Tre Cime. We even saw a street called Tre Cime, but that wouldn’t be the turnoff, too small, we weren’t going to be fooled into taking that turn. Finally we’re almost out of town and we decide to stop. Dan, being the linguist, jumps out and asks some old guy for the turnoff to Tre Cime. We see the guy gesturing, pointing, lots of words and body and face movements (the Italians can’t just talk with their mouths). Dan comes back and informs us we’re 30 Kilometers past our turnoff. The mountains are back there, we’re down in the valley. What!! A 30KM mistake. Yikes. At first it seemed like the old guy must be wrong, but he was very certain.
We think a bit, study the maps again, and feeling foolish, yet enjoying our mistake immensely, we head back. And as we head back we notice all the hints and indicators that we were way off track. No skillz. Now dear readers, as you can imagine, as the Navigator I took a ton of shit on that 30KM ride back to the fateful intersection. And yes once again, I could literally feel the LOOK boring into my head from my darling wife who sat directly behind me. And as you might imagine, lots of it I reflected back on the Pilot, because after all when a plane crashes nobody mentions the co-pilot. The buck has to stop somewhere. And then there was the Overall Tour Leader, April, who hadn’t really supplied us with the right tools (maps) for the job. Jayne for the most part came out unscathed, after all she hadn’t directed us to a bad bakery had she?
We finally make it back, head towards Austria (who knew!), find the toll road and 15 minutes from the key sign we’re up at Tre Cime. Nice. It’s about a 12:00 start.
There are some clouds and the peaks are in and out. We head out on our circuit. Lots of people but they thin out. We eat our lunches of PBJ, chips, snickers. All delicious. After about another hour we hit a refugio for some tea and cake. The crowds really thin because it’s so late and we have the last section all to ourselves. Wonderful. Good thing we got lost earlier in the day. The Tre Cime are stunning. So cool. And as usual we see all sorts of war remnants. And we even see a German army patrol out for some cave work. This is the second time we’ve seen them. It’s weird. At least we think they’re Germans as they have the German flag on their arm/uniform. Hey maybe they’re still pissed they lost this area.
We get back to Cortina. Have our best meal of the trip so far at Beppe Sello, a small, quaint, expensive, Tyrolean restaurant. I was sort of going vegetarian, but managed to eat lamb, prosciutto, and even beef. Sigh. It was all delicious. Dan’s prosciutto and melon was superb. We walk back to our hotel and as has become our custom after a meal, we immediately start farting like madmen. We can’t quite figure out what the story is here. The altitude (Dan’s claim), the rich food, the cream, who knows? All I know is we leave this classy place and it’s like an oompah band marching down the street blasting away. April has to fall to her knees to stop from peeing her pants while laughing. Jayne and April then jump into the bushes as they have to pee. Is this really what it’s supposed to be like for successful, mature, sophisticated 50-something couples after a grand meal? Do other people do this?
Ok, back to hiking. Next day we do another great day hike. Here we drive north, we don’t get lost, we head uphill thru the woods and streams and start our hike at a small rifugio. The waiter has an Alta t-shirt on, so we chat him up. Last winter he spent 6 months in the western USA skiing at Baker, Whistler, Red Mtn, Tahoe, Alta/Snowbird and Mammoth. I impress him with my magnificent fall down Hangman’s Hollow at Mammoth. The hike is great and different since we’re walking thru the woods up to a grassy high meadow. Beautiful larch and pine trees. Dan takes a swim in the tarn. We head down into rain. But it stops as we finish the last few miles. Another fantastic hike. As the Tour Guide April has been hitting homeruns. Both in hikes and hotels.
We go to a smaller Trattoria, Ariston Pizzeria, for dinner. It’s fantastic. Awesome pizza, spaghetti.
This is our last night in the Dolomiti. We all agree this is a world-class place. A must see destination. Worthy of a return trip even. We’re happy we did the Cortina side rather than Bolzano. Rick Steves plays up Bolzano and we’re starting to realize all the Americans are following Rick Steves books.
We drive to Venice, return the car, get the train to Milan and Varenna. We’re hitting the Lakes district for some R+R.
As we walk around the town we find a few fashion-oriented outdoor stores. You know the places that focus more on snazzy outfits than real mountaineering gear. Dan buys a “North Face Cortina” shirt. So now he’s got a couple of Dolomiti hikes under his belt, he’s got his new North Face t-shirt, so he’s feeling more and more like The Man. Then we find the real deal, the Italian Guiding Association headquarters, where all the tough alpine guys hangout for discussing weather, routes, etc. You need a guide for a 5.10 grade pitch directly up Tre Cime? This is where you come. Soon we find Dan lingering out front giving advice to tourists and newbies who come walking into the shop. April thought I was obnoxious giving advice on the Coast-Coast but Dan quickly moves beyond that stage of “know-it-all”. He sees the people later in the town and he’s still giving them advice! Ha-ha!
Next day we head out after a late start (some great bakeries) to hike around the Tre Cime (3 awesome spires right in a row).
As before Dan is the Pilot, I’m the co-pilot, Navigator. Now before I get to the full story here, let it be known we had squat for maps. We had one of the hand-drawn ski area type of maps, nothing to scale, no detail. It turns out April had the right map but it was in her pack in the trunk, why? I have no idea. We manage to find the right road out of town and head to Misurina. We get to Misurina, perfect. We’re feeling pretty good about the driving and the navigating. Now we’re looking for Rifugio Arunzo, after which there should be a toll road right to the Tre Cime. We come to a fork, it’s not a stop sign, we’re still moving, we see a sign in front of us, the top two entries pointing left are Austria and Dobbiaco. Certainly we didn’t want to go there. The bottom sign says Arunzo. I say, “go right”. Dan has already started turning that way. Hmm, complicit in the key moment? Now we’re feeling good.
So I start to tell a story from the book Outliers. And this story is about plane crashes, how they’re a series of small errors, and how in certain cultures which don’t speak up and question authority (eg Korean) the small errors can add up, and then the accident happens. Then the story morphs into listening and leadership and how you need good training, and of course we’re having a grand old time. Well it turns out we were doing exactly what I was describing in my story. We had a series of small indicators that would clearly show we’re on the wrong path but we never even noticed! Our road had started to go downhill, but we should have been going uphill to some high peaks. The road straightened out when we should have hit hairpin turns. We hit a lake and a stream heading downhill our way. Our little excursion seemed to be going much further than we had anticipated. So who knows, maybe the story was so great, maybe we were enjoying the ride so much, maybe we were relying on the Pilot or the Navigator too much, maybe we liked the scenery too much. Whatever. We finally hit a fairly large town, Arunzo, this is good, right? We merrily drive thru looking for the turnoff to Tre Cime. We even saw a street called Tre Cime, but that wouldn’t be the turnoff, too small, we weren’t going to be fooled into taking that turn. Finally we’re almost out of town and we decide to stop. Dan, being the linguist, jumps out and asks some old guy for the turnoff to Tre Cime. We see the guy gesturing, pointing, lots of words and body and face movements (the Italians can’t just talk with their mouths). Dan comes back and informs us we’re 30 Kilometers past our turnoff. The mountains are back there, we’re down in the valley. What!! A 30KM mistake. Yikes. At first it seemed like the old guy must be wrong, but he was very certain.
We think a bit, study the maps again, and feeling foolish, yet enjoying our mistake immensely, we head back. And as we head back we notice all the hints and indicators that we were way off track. No skillz. Now dear readers, as you can imagine, as the Navigator I took a ton of shit on that 30KM ride back to the fateful intersection. And yes once again, I could literally feel the LOOK boring into my head from my darling wife who sat directly behind me. And as you might imagine, lots of it I reflected back on the Pilot, because after all when a plane crashes nobody mentions the co-pilot. The buck has to stop somewhere. And then there was the Overall Tour Leader, April, who hadn’t really supplied us with the right tools (maps) for the job. Jayne for the most part came out unscathed, after all she hadn’t directed us to a bad bakery had she?
We finally make it back, head towards Austria (who knew!), find the toll road and 15 minutes from the key sign we’re up at Tre Cime. Nice. It’s about a 12:00 start.
There are some clouds and the peaks are in and out. We head out on our circuit. Lots of people but they thin out. We eat our lunches of PBJ, chips, snickers. All delicious. After about another hour we hit a refugio for some tea and cake. The crowds really thin because it’s so late and we have the last section all to ourselves. Wonderful. Good thing we got lost earlier in the day. The Tre Cime are stunning. So cool. And as usual we see all sorts of war remnants. And we even see a German army patrol out for some cave work. This is the second time we’ve seen them. It’s weird. At least we think they’re Germans as they have the German flag on their arm/uniform. Hey maybe they’re still pissed they lost this area.
We get back to Cortina. Have our best meal of the trip so far at Beppe Sello, a small, quaint, expensive, Tyrolean restaurant. I was sort of going vegetarian, but managed to eat lamb, prosciutto, and even beef. Sigh. It was all delicious. Dan’s prosciutto and melon was superb. We walk back to our hotel and as has become our custom after a meal, we immediately start farting like madmen. We can’t quite figure out what the story is here. The altitude (Dan’s claim), the rich food, the cream, who knows? All I know is we leave this classy place and it’s like an oompah band marching down the street blasting away. April has to fall to her knees to stop from peeing her pants while laughing. Jayne and April then jump into the bushes as they have to pee. Is this really what it’s supposed to be like for successful, mature, sophisticated 50-something couples after a grand meal? Do other people do this?
Ok, back to hiking. Next day we do another great day hike. Here we drive north, we don’t get lost, we head uphill thru the woods and streams and start our hike at a small rifugio. The waiter has an Alta t-shirt on, so we chat him up. Last winter he spent 6 months in the western USA skiing at Baker, Whistler, Red Mtn, Tahoe, Alta/Snowbird and Mammoth. I impress him with my magnificent fall down Hangman’s Hollow at Mammoth. The hike is great and different since we’re walking thru the woods up to a grassy high meadow. Beautiful larch and pine trees. Dan takes a swim in the tarn. We head down into rain. But it stops as we finish the last few miles. Another fantastic hike. As the Tour Guide April has been hitting homeruns. Both in hikes and hotels.
We go to a smaller Trattoria, Ariston Pizzeria, for dinner. It’s fantastic. Awesome pizza, spaghetti.
This is our last night in the Dolomiti. We all agree this is a world-class place. A must see destination. Worthy of a return trip even. We’re happy we did the Cortina side rather than Bolzano. Rick Steves plays up Bolzano and we’re starting to realize all the Americans are following Rick Steves books.
We drive to Venice, return the car, get the train to Milan and Varenna. We’re hitting the Lakes district for some R+R.
The Dolomiti
It’s hard to imagine two places so close, so distinct, and so different from each other as Venice and the Dolomites. In the course of ~2 hours you’re transported to a totally different world.
Details….
We needed a rental car in Venice, as we were going to drive to the Dolomiti. This was Dan’s one assignment for the Euro trip. April pretty much planned and reserved the whole trip, I painted the big picture then did a lot of second guessing (often times after something was booked), Jayne thought about food, cheese, gelato and bathrooms. And Dan was supposed to get the rental car. So Dan and Jane head off to NY to start their journey and realize they have no idea about anything they’re supposed to be doing, their dates, their reservations, their confirmations, nothing. And Dan has the car rental thing hanging over his head. He remembered reserving something but hadn’t forward the info to April. So he had no confirmation number or anything. And as they look thru their Rick Steve’s Italy book on their flight to NY, Dan reads he’ll need an International Driver’s License. So their whole trip started with a good bit of fear, uncertainty and doubt. Nice way to start your Euro vacation.
But as luck would have it, of course they had his reservation. And this being Italy they didn’t need no stinkin International drivers license. Heck they didn’t even ask for any driver’s license. The Italians don’t seem that focused on efficiency or details. Venice has a huge number of people pouring in via the train station, and there’s one window to buy tickets. Life’s good, why worry.
Dan got his nice little smart BMW, all our gear fit, Dan was the Pilot/driver, I was the Navigator. Away we go, we find our way out of Venice get on the Toll highway and head towards the mountains. We hit the toll booth, it’s not manned, there were some signs about TelePasses, the car in front of us seemed to drive right thru the toll gate, so Dan decides it must be fine for him to drive right through also. Who knows, perhaps he thought he had that EZ Pass that worked in NH, so maybe that should have him covered here? Maybe he thought the BMW had some hidden transceiver that would automatically get billed? Maybe he thought, this in Italy, they don’t care about tolls? Now the rest of us all yelled, “hey there’s the ticket in the machine - take it!” The Pilot slowed slightly about 20 feet past the toll gate, but Pilots need to have confidence, be cocky; backing up on the highway back to the toll gate didn’t seem to be in character with the Pilot and his snazzy little BMW, so after the slightest hesitation, away we sped. Ticketless.
Of course we all had a good laugh, then settled down to worry about our impending fate 100 KM distant. Actually Dan worried; the rest of us continued to have a good laugh.
The plains gave way to hills and then very quickly huge mountains. A really quick transition.
And then we come to the toll booth. What’s it going to be? A German/Austrian shakedown, or the Italian “Ciao”, why worry?
As we were still in the Italian part of Italy, of course we got the Italian response. Dan meekly tried to describe in his butchered 4-language technique (german, Italian, French, English) that he came from Venice but didn’t have a pass; the Italian didn’t even blink, took his money, gave him the change, gave him a Ciao and away we go. Who really cares about the rules?
Well it turns out, in about 30 more minutes every cares about the rules, as the Dolomites are more like Germany and Austria rather than Italy.
The Dolomiti (Italian spelling) are sort of a slightly separate mtn range from the rest of the Alps. There’s more sun and better weather. And they’re made up of a unique sedimentary rock called Dolomite (hence the name), Dolomite is similar to Limestone, but it has a reddish color in there, and they are shaped and weather slightly differently than the traditional Alps. Hence the wonderful glow in the morning/evening, and the amazing shapes. Whatever, the scenery is freaking crazy. Really fantastic. Amazing spires and towers everywhere you look.
And as for history, the area is way more German/Austrian than Italian. German seems to be the first language. The region was in the Hapsburg Austrian Empire for ~300 years, but in WW1, the Austrians lost the area to the Italians. Mussolini tried to culturally convert the locals, but they all wanted to stay German. In 1939 the locals were given a choice, they had a 6 month window where they could move north into Germany or they could stay Italian in the Dolomiti in Italy. 85% (212,000 people) made the decision to move! But WWII broke out and only 75000 had made the move and the rest were stuck in Italy. After the war the Allies kept the prewar land ownership so the area stayed Italian.
That being said, you think you’re in Austria/Switzerland. Beautiful alpine meadows, the same mtn huts, the same alpine house architecture, flower boxes on all the houses, food is wurst, sauerkraut, dumplings, speck, lot of meat dishes, strudel, beer. People hiking in leather hiking shorts and jaunty hats with a feather poking out. Pure Austrian.
We get to our first Mtn Hotel. It’s gorgeous, decorated in a mountain fashion (goat heads here, cukoo clock there, some pretty alpine prints and paintings, etc, etc). And the place is stunningly clean. I mean not a speck of dust on anything, and there’s all sorts of knick-knacks everywhere. I didn’t even know how a place could even get so clean. All four of us agree this is the cleanest place we’ve ever seen. I felt I had to take a shower just to get myself up to the standard of the hotel!
So who checks us in? Igor. Yes that’s right Igor. I ask for Wifi and Igor firmly states, “ THERE IS NO INTERNET HERE”. I’m reminded of the Terminator. Since Wifi was advertised on their web site and just for fun I ask on the second day for Internet again, maybe it works in the front café area? Igor gets pissed and says “I told you yesterday, THERE IS NO INTERNET HERE”. When we leave a few days later Dan says to Igor, we’ll be back with our kids, and since I‘m Greek and always like a little argument here and there, I suggest to Igor that he get Internet for the Hotel by the time I return. Dan seems a little embarrassed.
Ok - the hiking. Just amazing. From our hotel, we see this refugio (mountain hut) way up high, sitting impossibly on the edge of this cliff. Who the hell would build something up there? The crazy Germans/Austrians, that’s who. But these huts are great, they’re in the most ridiculous, wonderful, gorgeous places. Fantastic mtn and hiking culture. We hiked up to the refugio for lunch. It turned out to be closing but they still had tea/snacks. Jane felt good as she got her first real hiking of the trip under her belt and saw that all her Mt. Uncanoonic training was paying off. The scenery was mind-blowing. None of us had ever seen such outrageous shapes. Everywhere we looked it seemed like were in the Lord of the Rings staring at Mordor.
The next day we drove down the valley and up another pass to take a tram up to our Refugio Lagazuoi. April closed her eyes the whole ride up. It reminded me of the tram at Big Sky. This was a real mtn hut, great big deck out front for awesome coffee/beer and sitting. We hiked along a large escarpment and cliff edge. This whole area was the scene of lots of fighting between the Austrians and the Italians in WWI. The remnants are insane. Seriously. First of all there are these tunnels and paths going all through and over the mtns. You can go into the tunnels. You need a head lamp and a helmet. The walls, barbed wire, trenches, fortifications, are all over the place. It’s essentially an open-air museum where you can go and do/touch everything. In the States all the access would be scrupulously managed and monitored. Here you can hike thru the tunnels. In this particular mountain top, the Austrians held the peaks and the Italians held the lower portion of the mountain. And the Italians essentially carved out all these tunnels directly up to the Austrian fortifications. Then they took turns firing and throwing bombs at each other. And neither side could oust the other side. Freaking crazy. It’s out in the middle of nowhere. It probably didn’t matter to anyone strategically. It must have been miserable in the winter especially. Just freaking crazy. This was the kind of thing that made you question the human race.
So it must have been hell fighting a war in here, but the hiking is fantastic.
We hike out the next day. To make the day longer, we decide to try a longer route, the 20b, that goes thru a steep looking pass. Not really a pass but somehow a passage thru these spires and cliffs. We couldn’t quite see how the trail was going to succeed but we headed that way anyway. And we made a planning mistake; that is we didn’t have a plan. Remember from the C-C the old adage: “plan the hike, hike the plan.” Well we had no real plan. We head down a valley to the cliffs, staring at the seemingly impossible route. We get to the base of the cliff. The girls are getting nervous. The trail markers fade away, and the trail seems to go both left and right. Dan scouts left, I scout right. My route has a bushwhack up a scree slope or looks like it’s the old trail back to the rifugio. Dan’s is the right trail, he disappears after crossing a steep scree slope. The girls decide they’re too anxious to even cross the steep scree slope. Dan comes back and say it’s steep, slightly tricky but overall looks ok but by that time the girls had psyched themselves out. Wanksters. Then there was the big long discussion of should we split up, how much food did we have, etc, etc. We all decided to stick together and return the easy way and head down. Sigh.
Now if we had created a plan of: ‘just keep hiking until the next 10 steps look impossible, then we all turn back’, then we probably could have done it. The problem was the girls thought it might get too hard even though they never actually saw it get too hard. Whatever.
So we hiked down to our car and headed down to Cortina which was to be our base for the next 3 days. Cortina is where they had the 1956 Olympics. It’s a gorgeous setting. Beautiful alpine meadow, small little village center, some high-end shopping, nice restaurants, beautiful houses/fields/gardens spreading out from the town center. Vast mountain groups everywhere we look. Great place for a few days. And not too many American tourists around. Nice.
Details….
We needed a rental car in Venice, as we were going to drive to the Dolomiti. This was Dan’s one assignment for the Euro trip. April pretty much planned and reserved the whole trip, I painted the big picture then did a lot of second guessing (often times after something was booked), Jayne thought about food, cheese, gelato and bathrooms. And Dan was supposed to get the rental car. So Dan and Jane head off to NY to start their journey and realize they have no idea about anything they’re supposed to be doing, their dates, their reservations, their confirmations, nothing. And Dan has the car rental thing hanging over his head. He remembered reserving something but hadn’t forward the info to April. So he had no confirmation number or anything. And as they look thru their Rick Steve’s Italy book on their flight to NY, Dan reads he’ll need an International Driver’s License. So their whole trip started with a good bit of fear, uncertainty and doubt. Nice way to start your Euro vacation.
But as luck would have it, of course they had his reservation. And this being Italy they didn’t need no stinkin International drivers license. Heck they didn’t even ask for any driver’s license. The Italians don’t seem that focused on efficiency or details. Venice has a huge number of people pouring in via the train station, and there’s one window to buy tickets. Life’s good, why worry.
Dan got his nice little smart BMW, all our gear fit, Dan was the Pilot/driver, I was the Navigator. Away we go, we find our way out of Venice get on the Toll highway and head towards the mountains. We hit the toll booth, it’s not manned, there were some signs about TelePasses, the car in front of us seemed to drive right thru the toll gate, so Dan decides it must be fine for him to drive right through also. Who knows, perhaps he thought he had that EZ Pass that worked in NH, so maybe that should have him covered here? Maybe he thought the BMW had some hidden transceiver that would automatically get billed? Maybe he thought, this in Italy, they don’t care about tolls? Now the rest of us all yelled, “hey there’s the ticket in the machine - take it!” The Pilot slowed slightly about 20 feet past the toll gate, but Pilots need to have confidence, be cocky; backing up on the highway back to the toll gate didn’t seem to be in character with the Pilot and his snazzy little BMW, so after the slightest hesitation, away we sped. Ticketless.
Of course we all had a good laugh, then settled down to worry about our impending fate 100 KM distant. Actually Dan worried; the rest of us continued to have a good laugh.
The plains gave way to hills and then very quickly huge mountains. A really quick transition.
And then we come to the toll booth. What’s it going to be? A German/Austrian shakedown, or the Italian “Ciao”, why worry?
As we were still in the Italian part of Italy, of course we got the Italian response. Dan meekly tried to describe in his butchered 4-language technique (german, Italian, French, English) that he came from Venice but didn’t have a pass; the Italian didn’t even blink, took his money, gave him the change, gave him a Ciao and away we go. Who really cares about the rules?
Well it turns out, in about 30 more minutes every cares about the rules, as the Dolomites are more like Germany and Austria rather than Italy.
The Dolomiti (Italian spelling) are sort of a slightly separate mtn range from the rest of the Alps. There’s more sun and better weather. And they’re made up of a unique sedimentary rock called Dolomite (hence the name), Dolomite is similar to Limestone, but it has a reddish color in there, and they are shaped and weather slightly differently than the traditional Alps. Hence the wonderful glow in the morning/evening, and the amazing shapes. Whatever, the scenery is freaking crazy. Really fantastic. Amazing spires and towers everywhere you look.
And as for history, the area is way more German/Austrian than Italian. German seems to be the first language. The region was in the Hapsburg Austrian Empire for ~300 years, but in WW1, the Austrians lost the area to the Italians. Mussolini tried to culturally convert the locals, but they all wanted to stay German. In 1939 the locals were given a choice, they had a 6 month window where they could move north into Germany or they could stay Italian in the Dolomiti in Italy. 85% (212,000 people) made the decision to move! But WWII broke out and only 75000 had made the move and the rest were stuck in Italy. After the war the Allies kept the prewar land ownership so the area stayed Italian.
That being said, you think you’re in Austria/Switzerland. Beautiful alpine meadows, the same mtn huts, the same alpine house architecture, flower boxes on all the houses, food is wurst, sauerkraut, dumplings, speck, lot of meat dishes, strudel, beer. People hiking in leather hiking shorts and jaunty hats with a feather poking out. Pure Austrian.
We get to our first Mtn Hotel. It’s gorgeous, decorated in a mountain fashion (goat heads here, cukoo clock there, some pretty alpine prints and paintings, etc, etc). And the place is stunningly clean. I mean not a speck of dust on anything, and there’s all sorts of knick-knacks everywhere. I didn’t even know how a place could even get so clean. All four of us agree this is the cleanest place we’ve ever seen. I felt I had to take a shower just to get myself up to the standard of the hotel!
So who checks us in? Igor. Yes that’s right Igor. I ask for Wifi and Igor firmly states, “ THERE IS NO INTERNET HERE”. I’m reminded of the Terminator. Since Wifi was advertised on their web site and just for fun I ask on the second day for Internet again, maybe it works in the front café area? Igor gets pissed and says “I told you yesterday, THERE IS NO INTERNET HERE”. When we leave a few days later Dan says to Igor, we’ll be back with our kids, and since I‘m Greek and always like a little argument here and there, I suggest to Igor that he get Internet for the Hotel by the time I return. Dan seems a little embarrassed.
Ok - the hiking. Just amazing. From our hotel, we see this refugio (mountain hut) way up high, sitting impossibly on the edge of this cliff. Who the hell would build something up there? The crazy Germans/Austrians, that’s who. But these huts are great, they’re in the most ridiculous, wonderful, gorgeous places. Fantastic mtn and hiking culture. We hiked up to the refugio for lunch. It turned out to be closing but they still had tea/snacks. Jane felt good as she got her first real hiking of the trip under her belt and saw that all her Mt. Uncanoonic training was paying off. The scenery was mind-blowing. None of us had ever seen such outrageous shapes. Everywhere we looked it seemed like were in the Lord of the Rings staring at Mordor.
The next day we drove down the valley and up another pass to take a tram up to our Refugio Lagazuoi. April closed her eyes the whole ride up. It reminded me of the tram at Big Sky. This was a real mtn hut, great big deck out front for awesome coffee/beer and sitting. We hiked along a large escarpment and cliff edge. This whole area was the scene of lots of fighting between the Austrians and the Italians in WWI. The remnants are insane. Seriously. First of all there are these tunnels and paths going all through and over the mtns. You can go into the tunnels. You need a head lamp and a helmet. The walls, barbed wire, trenches, fortifications, are all over the place. It’s essentially an open-air museum where you can go and do/touch everything. In the States all the access would be scrupulously managed and monitored. Here you can hike thru the tunnels. In this particular mountain top, the Austrians held the peaks and the Italians held the lower portion of the mountain. And the Italians essentially carved out all these tunnels directly up to the Austrian fortifications. Then they took turns firing and throwing bombs at each other. And neither side could oust the other side. Freaking crazy. It’s out in the middle of nowhere. It probably didn’t matter to anyone strategically. It must have been miserable in the winter especially. Just freaking crazy. This was the kind of thing that made you question the human race.
So it must have been hell fighting a war in here, but the hiking is fantastic.
We hike out the next day. To make the day longer, we decide to try a longer route, the 20b, that goes thru a steep looking pass. Not really a pass but somehow a passage thru these spires and cliffs. We couldn’t quite see how the trail was going to succeed but we headed that way anyway. And we made a planning mistake; that is we didn’t have a plan. Remember from the C-C the old adage: “plan the hike, hike the plan.” Well we had no real plan. We head down a valley to the cliffs, staring at the seemingly impossible route. We get to the base of the cliff. The girls are getting nervous. The trail markers fade away, and the trail seems to go both left and right. Dan scouts left, I scout right. My route has a bushwhack up a scree slope or looks like it’s the old trail back to the rifugio. Dan’s is the right trail, he disappears after crossing a steep scree slope. The girls decide they’re too anxious to even cross the steep scree slope. Dan comes back and say it’s steep, slightly tricky but overall looks ok but by that time the girls had psyched themselves out. Wanksters. Then there was the big long discussion of should we split up, how much food did we have, etc, etc. We all decided to stick together and return the easy way and head down. Sigh.
Now if we had created a plan of: ‘just keep hiking until the next 10 steps look impossible, then we all turn back’, then we probably could have done it. The problem was the girls thought it might get too hard even though they never actually saw it get too hard. Whatever.
So we hiked down to our car and headed down to Cortina which was to be our base for the next 3 days. Cortina is where they had the 1956 Olympics. It’s a gorgeous setting. Beautiful alpine meadow, small little village center, some high-end shopping, nice restaurants, beautiful houses/fields/gardens spreading out from the town center. Vast mountain groups everywhere we look. Great place for a few days. And not too many American tourists around. Nice.
Venice
We’re on the train from Venice to Milan, and Jayne just ate about a freaking pound of gorgonzola. Based on past experience this will make for an interesting day.
But to catch up….
In case you hadn’t noticed, we’ll have fewer blog entries from here on out. When we were doing the C-C hike, it was really easy to get into a routine, hike, arrive, shower, eat, blog, sleep. So blog/day. But now there’s more going on. More traveling, surprising - but less internet access, more wild and crazy nights as we hit the Euro dance clubs, yea baby!
After the hike we had a few days in London. We walked thru Boroughs market, it was fantastic. Wide variety of products including many different meats. And a lot of the natural organic and wild products came from the Lakes district where we had just been. Great looking meat pies, seafood, breads, cheese, veggies, etc. There was an awesome prosciutto shop; they had whole legs from hip to hoof (still on) displayed and being cut from. It was like an anatomy display! I had just gotten sick from prosciutto so I couldn’t partake but I really wanted to. It’s a must stop for all London trips. We visited the Imperial War Museum. This also was fantastic. They had this incredible exhibit on the Holocaust. Very powerful, you need about 1-2 hours just to see this exhibit.
And we met up with Mimi, who’s spending the semester in London. We were all so excited to see each other. Mimi seemed especially excited as we were loaning her cash since she had lost her debit card (hmm, I wonder how that happened). We went to a high-end Indian/English fusion restaurant, the Cinnamon Club. We walk in, there are all these posh, stuffy Londoners there, Mimi had a sweatshirt on, we had backpacks, and April had a fleece on. They inquired if we needed to use the coat check room. We said no, but they gave us a look. We looked back. They let us in. The food was brilliant! Mimi had the lamb, I had the quail, and April can’t remember what she ate. Sad. The food was spicy and I was trying to stay away from meat but couldn’t resist.
Ok so we head out to Gatwick for the flight to Venice, we’re super excited to meet up with Dan and Jayne, we get to the airport and discover there’s a one-day handlers strike in Venice so our flight has been diverted to Verona. After which they’ll bus us (2 hrs) to the Venice airport. What a pain. But that’s life, bend with the wind.
We were supposed to arrive at 4:00. Instead we finally get to the Venice airport at 7:00. We try to catch a water bus to our hotel stop, but there’s not the right one for 2 more hours, so we lug our stuff to the road bus area, jump on a bus and finally get to Venice at about 8:00 at night. It’s dark, it’s mobbed, we can’t see shit, and we have no idea where to go. April had directions to our hotel only from the airport water bus/stop. April wants to head off walking in the dark cause she sees a new bridge; why that would be appropriate I have no idea. Anyway we stumble over to some lights/people and find a line/booth for something, we’re not quite sure what though. We get to the counter and ask where we go to buy tickets for the water bus and lo and behold this is the right booth. Skillz! We buy tickets for water bus 52 and get off at the Guglia stop, walk 200 meters down a dark and unpopulated area and sure enough there’s our B+B. April yells up to the second floor window (as she made sure to reserve the front room) and sure enough Dan yells back; they had arrived earlier and waited for us for dinner, nice! It was a great night, we had all been traveling, we were all finally there, Venice is magical and very different from anything else in the whole world. We just went to a nearby restaurant; quite average food for Italy. But we didn’t care. We were all exhausted so we hit the sack. D and J had snagged the good bed (rightly so since they had traveled longer and been there first) , we got the foldout couch, the foot area of the couch sagged, so while I lay there trying to sleep with my feet sticking straight out into the air a few inches above the mattress, I determined the new room/bed selection algorithm for the two couples. We would alternate the choice of rooms or beds, but you didn’t have to use your chit, unless you really wanted to. So D+J got the first choice, now we owned first choice at the next hotel (if necessary). But so far all the subsequent rooms have been identical, and we haven’t shared a room, so I still have that chit in my pocket. It’s a comforting feeling!
Venice. We had a great 2 days here. It’s very small, you can walk around the whole island in a couple of days. They have water bus routes that go thru all the large canals. But the roads/paths/alleys are incredibly intricate. You can walk down all sorts of dead ends. It might end at a wall, or the water, or just loop back to where you started. We wanted to walk to a vegetable/fish market, and we started out but weren’t making any progress so I had to take over the formal role as the Navigator. This turned out to be a significant choice, as you’ll see when we got up to the Dolomites.
So now that we had a Navigator, we subsequently made great time walking thru Venice. After a few hours of walking success, April and Dan seemed to think they could just follow the signs pointing to the major squares. Not a bad plan for general direction, but clearly not good enough for pinpoint directions/shopping.
We sat in San Marco’s square for awhile, had coffee/snacks and just watched the people. At first we sat in the restaurant with blue chairs but they had a band playing and it would have cost 6 Euros each just to sit there (in addition to the coffee order). So we moved 20 yards to the yellow chairs, and of course paid an arm and a leg for coffee/sweets but we could still hear the music for free!
During the walking day we noticed there was going to be a string ensemble concert behind the church. We had a little discussion about whether we should attend the concert or go eat. I was pushing that a nice dinner would be more time/place appropriate since you can listen to a concert anywhere. The other three pushed for the concert. Normally I would have been thrilled to pursue a 1 vs 3 argument but since I’m starting to mature slightly more as a result of meditation, I let it go. Just so you know the food hadn’t been great in Venice either which probably contributed to my out-of-character acquiesce.
Anyway we attended the concert and it was fantastic! It wasn’t really a concert; there were only about 30 people attending, it was in a small beautiful room attached to a church, acoustics were nice, we were in the front row, wonderful intimacy. There were two violins, a cello, and a harpsichord. They played a ~6 pieces from composers who lived around 1650-1700 in that area. So it turned out to be VERY time and place appropriate. The setting, the pieces, the instruments, the audience. Magical.
The only problem was we all kept falling asleep. And since we were in the front row there was the impending danger of falling forward right at the musicians. Jayne and I like to listen with our eyes closed so our heads kept bobbing, then we’d wake up. And Dan claimed to have fallen asleep with his eyes open as he dreamed of geese flying overhead in NH, which by the way would have been really weird if he fell forward with his eyes open. But fear not, we all kept our seats, and the concert ended wonderfully with a beautiful rendition of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Of course Dan cried a few times during the concert. I wonder if that happened while he was dreaming of those geese?
Ok so that’s about it for Venice. Great little city to visit (but not live there). Very unique. Very crowded. Very expensive. Average food. Mardi Gras was invented here. They still celebrate it and it looks like a wild and crazy time. Everyone gets dressed up and masked so the baroness might end up dancing with the fish monger. At least for one night everyone gets to be someone else. Certainly one of the world’s great parties.
That being said it’s also a weird place. There are very few real people there. And they’re all old. And it’d probably suck to live there cause it’s all tourists. And there aren’t that many real amenities like food stores, pharmacies, local meeting places, parks. The houses are all old/crumbling and will almost certainly lose the battle with global warming (more flooding). There are 60,000 living there (1/2 of what it was 30 years ago), the population is aging, they’re losing 1000 people/year. Maybe Disney will buy it. It can be just like Epcot
But to catch up….
In case you hadn’t noticed, we’ll have fewer blog entries from here on out. When we were doing the C-C hike, it was really easy to get into a routine, hike, arrive, shower, eat, blog, sleep. So blog/day. But now there’s more going on. More traveling, surprising - but less internet access, more wild and crazy nights as we hit the Euro dance clubs, yea baby!
After the hike we had a few days in London. We walked thru Boroughs market, it was fantastic. Wide variety of products including many different meats. And a lot of the natural organic and wild products came from the Lakes district where we had just been. Great looking meat pies, seafood, breads, cheese, veggies, etc. There was an awesome prosciutto shop; they had whole legs from hip to hoof (still on) displayed and being cut from. It was like an anatomy display! I had just gotten sick from prosciutto so I couldn’t partake but I really wanted to. It’s a must stop for all London trips. We visited the Imperial War Museum. This also was fantastic. They had this incredible exhibit on the Holocaust. Very powerful, you need about 1-2 hours just to see this exhibit.
And we met up with Mimi, who’s spending the semester in London. We were all so excited to see each other. Mimi seemed especially excited as we were loaning her cash since she had lost her debit card (hmm, I wonder how that happened). We went to a high-end Indian/English fusion restaurant, the Cinnamon Club. We walk in, there are all these posh, stuffy Londoners there, Mimi had a sweatshirt on, we had backpacks, and April had a fleece on. They inquired if we needed to use the coat check room. We said no, but they gave us a look. We looked back. They let us in. The food was brilliant! Mimi had the lamb, I had the quail, and April can’t remember what she ate. Sad. The food was spicy and I was trying to stay away from meat but couldn’t resist.
Ok so we head out to Gatwick for the flight to Venice, we’re super excited to meet up with Dan and Jayne, we get to the airport and discover there’s a one-day handlers strike in Venice so our flight has been diverted to Verona. After which they’ll bus us (2 hrs) to the Venice airport. What a pain. But that’s life, bend with the wind.
We were supposed to arrive at 4:00. Instead we finally get to the Venice airport at 7:00. We try to catch a water bus to our hotel stop, but there’s not the right one for 2 more hours, so we lug our stuff to the road bus area, jump on a bus and finally get to Venice at about 8:00 at night. It’s dark, it’s mobbed, we can’t see shit, and we have no idea where to go. April had directions to our hotel only from the airport water bus/stop. April wants to head off walking in the dark cause she sees a new bridge; why that would be appropriate I have no idea. Anyway we stumble over to some lights/people and find a line/booth for something, we’re not quite sure what though. We get to the counter and ask where we go to buy tickets for the water bus and lo and behold this is the right booth. Skillz! We buy tickets for water bus 52 and get off at the Guglia stop, walk 200 meters down a dark and unpopulated area and sure enough there’s our B+B. April yells up to the second floor window (as she made sure to reserve the front room) and sure enough Dan yells back; they had arrived earlier and waited for us for dinner, nice! It was a great night, we had all been traveling, we were all finally there, Venice is magical and very different from anything else in the whole world. We just went to a nearby restaurant; quite average food for Italy. But we didn’t care. We were all exhausted so we hit the sack. D and J had snagged the good bed (rightly so since they had traveled longer and been there first) , we got the foldout couch, the foot area of the couch sagged, so while I lay there trying to sleep with my feet sticking straight out into the air a few inches above the mattress, I determined the new room/bed selection algorithm for the two couples. We would alternate the choice of rooms or beds, but you didn’t have to use your chit, unless you really wanted to. So D+J got the first choice, now we owned first choice at the next hotel (if necessary). But so far all the subsequent rooms have been identical, and we haven’t shared a room, so I still have that chit in my pocket. It’s a comforting feeling!
Venice. We had a great 2 days here. It’s very small, you can walk around the whole island in a couple of days. They have water bus routes that go thru all the large canals. But the roads/paths/alleys are incredibly intricate. You can walk down all sorts of dead ends. It might end at a wall, or the water, or just loop back to where you started. We wanted to walk to a vegetable/fish market, and we started out but weren’t making any progress so I had to take over the formal role as the Navigator. This turned out to be a significant choice, as you’ll see when we got up to the Dolomites.
So now that we had a Navigator, we subsequently made great time walking thru Venice. After a few hours of walking success, April and Dan seemed to think they could just follow the signs pointing to the major squares. Not a bad plan for general direction, but clearly not good enough for pinpoint directions/shopping.
We sat in San Marco’s square for awhile, had coffee/snacks and just watched the people. At first we sat in the restaurant with blue chairs but they had a band playing and it would have cost 6 Euros each just to sit there (in addition to the coffee order). So we moved 20 yards to the yellow chairs, and of course paid an arm and a leg for coffee/sweets but we could still hear the music for free!
During the walking day we noticed there was going to be a string ensemble concert behind the church. We had a little discussion about whether we should attend the concert or go eat. I was pushing that a nice dinner would be more time/place appropriate since you can listen to a concert anywhere. The other three pushed for the concert. Normally I would have been thrilled to pursue a 1 vs 3 argument but since I’m starting to mature slightly more as a result of meditation, I let it go. Just so you know the food hadn’t been great in Venice either which probably contributed to my out-of-character acquiesce.
Anyway we attended the concert and it was fantastic! It wasn’t really a concert; there were only about 30 people attending, it was in a small beautiful room attached to a church, acoustics were nice, we were in the front row, wonderful intimacy. There were two violins, a cello, and a harpsichord. They played a ~6 pieces from composers who lived around 1650-1700 in that area. So it turned out to be VERY time and place appropriate. The setting, the pieces, the instruments, the audience. Magical.
The only problem was we all kept falling asleep. And since we were in the front row there was the impending danger of falling forward right at the musicians. Jayne and I like to listen with our eyes closed so our heads kept bobbing, then we’d wake up. And Dan claimed to have fallen asleep with his eyes open as he dreamed of geese flying overhead in NH, which by the way would have been really weird if he fell forward with his eyes open. But fear not, we all kept our seats, and the concert ended wonderfully with a beautiful rendition of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Of course Dan cried a few times during the concert. I wonder if that happened while he was dreaming of those geese?
Ok so that’s about it for Venice. Great little city to visit (but not live there). Very unique. Very crowded. Very expensive. Average food. Mardi Gras was invented here. They still celebrate it and it looks like a wild and crazy time. Everyone gets dressed up and masked so the baroness might end up dancing with the fish monger. At least for one night everyone gets to be someone else. Certainly one of the world’s great parties.
That being said it’s also a weird place. There are very few real people there. And they’re all old. And it’d probably suck to live there cause it’s all tourists. And there aren’t that many real amenities like food stores, pharmacies, local meeting places, parks. The houses are all old/crumbling and will almost certainly lose the battle with global warming (more flooding). There are 60,000 living there (1/2 of what it was 30 years ago), the population is aging, they’re losing 1000 people/year. Maybe Disney will buy it. It can be just like Epcot
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Last day of the C2C
Ethan and Chris Dubois have been looking for the shorter blog version to go with their shorter attention span, here it is: woke up, hiked 14 miles, finished the C2C. Done.
For the real fans:
Awoke to a gorgeous day, clear blue sky, cools temps, you could tell it was Fall. Had the standard bfast, chatted with an older guy (60s) who was doing the C2C with his 5 buddies. He had done it 15 years ago with his son. He claimed this is the second most popular hike in world after the Appalachian Trail. He also gave us the great tip which was to not throw our pebble into the Irish Sea (tradition), but save it as a memento. Good idea. We had to go to the next hotel to get our lunches, they screwed them up, and then it turned out the sandwiches were lame anyway.
So away we went on the last day. We’re always fresh in the morning, and today was no different. It seems like in the morning we achieve 3 hrs of progress (as described in our book) in 3 hrs. But then in the afternoon it takes us like 5 hrs to complete the last 3 hrs. Headed up a path next to the road. Birds are singing, geese overhead, empty trail. Perfect. Then we dropped into a little river valley, followed the stream for about an hour. Slightly missed our turnoff up a hill to a super steep section, but we backtracked and found it. We’re pretty good on the uphills as our aerobics are kickass now. It’s our feet that are hurting.
We finally got to the top of Dent Hill and had great views of the Irish Sea. If the feet were good we might have even done a little Irish Jig. We could see the rest of the route to St. Bees (our last town). As this was about 12:00 we passed all the folks heading the other way. Of course they were in awe of us for finishing and they were in their first day. I tried not to give too much advice.
Went thru a few towns. April couldn’t resist a fresh potato/onion/cheese pasty (like a turnover). Stopped for lunch which was bad so we threw our sandwiches away, just ate the banana/juice/muffin/candy.
Got minorly lost again as we crossed a field but we caught ourselves at the end of it as the maps didn’t line up. It turns out we really liked the whole navigation thing. It was like a puzzle we had to solve each day. It took both of us and our 2 books and our map. They say the C2C is the hardest route to follow in England because it’s not an official trail so there very little signage. We helped an older couple who were out for a day walk with their directions.
Ok finally we got to the coast. But the damn trail curves way around north of the target town, and then curves south to follow the coastline hills down to St. Bees. It adds about 3 miles to the route.
I was hoping the exhilaration of the end and the ocean and the wind would carry us those last few miles, but it turns out it didn’t. We were exhausted. Yesterday and today, both 14 miles, were fairly difficult. Especially in the afternoons as our bodies were screaming to get off our feet. So we slogged along.
The my stomach started gurgling again. Serious problem. There were people following about 100 yards behind us. But I had to really go. So as we passed a stone wall I jumped to the left and took what was probably the quickest crap in the history of the C2C. Start to finish took about 15 seconds. Maybe less. Boom went the explosion, and I was working the toilet paper before everything had hit the ground. A few quick wipes, pulled up the shorts, covered the whole thing with grass, Purelled, and away we went. They have these plaques you can get carved/engraved as you finish, they read “Peter and April Spiro hiked 192 miles on the C2C”. Maybe I should get one stating “Quickest crap on the C2C.” It’d be a Spiro legacy I could hand down to my kids. Ha-ha.
Ok so we finally drop down to the water. We put our feet in. But we save our pebbles we had carried from the North Sea.
Then we realized we still had about an hour left much of it up the headlands. Shit. So away we slog. By this time we’re really knackered. Not really excited to finish, just happy to get off our feet. We finally hit bluffs just above the wide sandy beach below St. Bees. Rested on a bench. Then dropped down to the beach, and surprise the older couple we had helped earlier today came out to greet us. They were staying in a camper right on the beach and had been looking for us. They shook our hands and the guy gave April a kiss. Very nice. If we weren’t so tired we would have stayed and chatted with them but we had to get to our B+B.
Absolutely great B+B called the Abbey Farmhouse. Building is from the 1500s. The owners were really gracious and welcoming. They usually get people leaving their B+B to start the trip so they liked us ending it there. They offered us a bottle of wine but we couldn’t drink it cause of my stomach and April is off of wine. They have wireless. It sounds like a great bfast (they get their pork products from the same organic farm that supplies the Queen). Free range organic eggs, baked in the Aga. Our room is huge, bed/sheet awesome, shower is good, robes in the room. And they did a wash for us. Brilliant!
Once April got that robe on it took a ton of convincing to get her out for dinner. But we did go, I had salmon and rice, April had fish and chips. Again I must say I totally underestimated the quality of the food. It has been quite good.
Limped back to the B+B, April tried to read and fell asleep with her book in her hands in about 2 minutes. I finished this, now I’m hitting the sack.
Training to London tomorrow. Will see Mimi probably Thursday. Heading to Italy on Friday.
For the real fans:
Awoke to a gorgeous day, clear blue sky, cools temps, you could tell it was Fall. Had the standard bfast, chatted with an older guy (60s) who was doing the C2C with his 5 buddies. He had done it 15 years ago with his son. He claimed this is the second most popular hike in world after the Appalachian Trail. He also gave us the great tip which was to not throw our pebble into the Irish Sea (tradition), but save it as a memento. Good idea. We had to go to the next hotel to get our lunches, they screwed them up, and then it turned out the sandwiches were lame anyway.
So away we went on the last day. We’re always fresh in the morning, and today was no different. It seems like in the morning we achieve 3 hrs of progress (as described in our book) in 3 hrs. But then in the afternoon it takes us like 5 hrs to complete the last 3 hrs. Headed up a path next to the road. Birds are singing, geese overhead, empty trail. Perfect. Then we dropped into a little river valley, followed the stream for about an hour. Slightly missed our turnoff up a hill to a super steep section, but we backtracked and found it. We’re pretty good on the uphills as our aerobics are kickass now. It’s our feet that are hurting.
We finally got to the top of Dent Hill and had great views of the Irish Sea. If the feet were good we might have even done a little Irish Jig. We could see the rest of the route to St. Bees (our last town). As this was about 12:00 we passed all the folks heading the other way. Of course they were in awe of us for finishing and they were in their first day. I tried not to give too much advice.
Went thru a few towns. April couldn’t resist a fresh potato/onion/cheese pasty (like a turnover). Stopped for lunch which was bad so we threw our sandwiches away, just ate the banana/juice/muffin/candy.
Got minorly lost again as we crossed a field but we caught ourselves at the end of it as the maps didn’t line up. It turns out we really liked the whole navigation thing. It was like a puzzle we had to solve each day. It took both of us and our 2 books and our map. They say the C2C is the hardest route to follow in England because it’s not an official trail so there very little signage. We helped an older couple who were out for a day walk with their directions.
Ok finally we got to the coast. But the damn trail curves way around north of the target town, and then curves south to follow the coastline hills down to St. Bees. It adds about 3 miles to the route.
I was hoping the exhilaration of the end and the ocean and the wind would carry us those last few miles, but it turns out it didn’t. We were exhausted. Yesterday and today, both 14 miles, were fairly difficult. Especially in the afternoons as our bodies were screaming to get off our feet. So we slogged along.
The my stomach started gurgling again. Serious problem. There were people following about 100 yards behind us. But I had to really go. So as we passed a stone wall I jumped to the left and took what was probably the quickest crap in the history of the C2C. Start to finish took about 15 seconds. Maybe less. Boom went the explosion, and I was working the toilet paper before everything had hit the ground. A few quick wipes, pulled up the shorts, covered the whole thing with grass, Purelled, and away we went. They have these plaques you can get carved/engraved as you finish, they read “Peter and April Spiro hiked 192 miles on the C2C”. Maybe I should get one stating “Quickest crap on the C2C.” It’d be a Spiro legacy I could hand down to my kids. Ha-ha.
Ok so we finally drop down to the water. We put our feet in. But we save our pebbles we had carried from the North Sea.
Then we realized we still had about an hour left much of it up the headlands. Shit. So away we slog. By this time we’re really knackered. Not really excited to finish, just happy to get off our feet. We finally hit bluffs just above the wide sandy beach below St. Bees. Rested on a bench. Then dropped down to the beach, and surprise the older couple we had helped earlier today came out to greet us. They were staying in a camper right on the beach and had been looking for us. They shook our hands and the guy gave April a kiss. Very nice. If we weren’t so tired we would have stayed and chatted with them but we had to get to our B+B.
Absolutely great B+B called the Abbey Farmhouse. Building is from the 1500s. The owners were really gracious and welcoming. They usually get people leaving their B+B to start the trip so they liked us ending it there. They offered us a bottle of wine but we couldn’t drink it cause of my stomach and April is off of wine. They have wireless. It sounds like a great bfast (they get their pork products from the same organic farm that supplies the Queen). Free range organic eggs, baked in the Aga. Our room is huge, bed/sheet awesome, shower is good, robes in the room. And they did a wash for us. Brilliant!
Once April got that robe on it took a ton of convincing to get her out for dinner. But we did go, I had salmon and rice, April had fish and chips. Again I must say I totally underestimated the quality of the food. It has been quite good.
Limped back to the B+B, April tried to read and fell asleep with her book in her hands in about 2 minutes. I finished this, now I’m hitting the sack.
Training to London tomorrow. Will see Mimi probably Thursday. Heading to Italy on Friday.
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