May 18th and we're on our way to the Dolomites. This time I took the Autostrada (A27) to San Vito di Caldore where we had rented a two bedroom apartment.
Cute little town with about 1700 people, it sits just 6 miles south of Cortina d"Ampezzo, one of the host cities for the 2026 Olympics. Surrounded by mountains on the East and West sides, it's very scenic (when the clouds aren't obscuring the peaks).
We arrived around noon and our host gave us a slightly bigger apartment, which was nice. We were just off the SS51 which gave us easy access. Our first order of business was a walk around town to see what was what.
San Vito has great access to hiking trails on both sides of town. The east side trails go up to the ski area and refugio's further up on Monte Antelao. On the west side, trails go up towards Cima D'Ambrizzola. It also has a Rail to Trail path that runs all the way to Cortina from Zuel about 9 miles total.
One of the former train stations on the path.
It being off season most of the restaurants were closed so we drove up to Cortina, found a "pub" named Hacker Pschorr Haus and had beers and food.
The next day being a Sunday, we walked up from the village to the Refugio Senes, a hotel, which was closed. A quarter mile or so further we found the Capitello Madonna degli Alpini. It's a small shrine for climbers heading further up into the mountains. The paved road turned to dirt through a forest of pines and meadows.
On Monday we headed north through Cortina up to go hiking on a trail that I had found only to be blocked by a little snow.
That's the trail behind us. It was a harbinger of things to come.
We did a road trip towards Canazei, a little town that I had spent a couple nights in before. Lots of snow on the passes but the sun had come out and we finally saw more of the Dolomite peaks.
We even caught sight of either an avalanche or a waterfall from the road.
Later that evening we were walking around town when we saw some ladies harvesting a plant. Mary went up to them and talked a bit and they explained, well maybe communicated via gestures that you could put it on a lot of things. They were kind enough to give her some and she made a wonder dish with farro for dinner that night. She researched it and found the Italian name is strigoli o carletti
She was also partial to the Beet Ravoli's that we found at the bakery in town. Personally I'm not a beet fan, but these were really good.
Our last road trip was towards the Tre Cime di Lavardo which I had visited on a previous trip. You can hike a circuit around them that takes you through some amazing World War I trenches and tunnels. But unfortunately the road was closed way short of the parking area. We debated going on up, as we'd seen other cars doing, but being tourists we weren't sure about it.
We left and headed towards Misurina, where I had found some other trails that might afford us a view of the Tre Cima. The lake was still partly ice covered but it was a beautiful day and we walked around the lake.
From the it was on to Auronzo where we walked around it's lake and found a picnic area with nice views.
The weather was still nice on our last day in San Vito. Mary decided to take a hike up past Refugio Senes and I decided to walk around town. After a while I changed my mind and drove the car up to the Refugio and headed uphill as well. I met up with Mary at Taula Regoietes, which is just a wood hut that would serve as a shelter if the weather got bad. Not much too it, just a stove and wooden bunks.
We continued on up the road to where it turned into a single track that led up to the next Taula. I'd had enough so I headed down while Mary headed up.
I waited for Mary to come down and we drove back into town. We then walked over to our favorite little outside bar, "Bar Antelao" for a snack and Dolomiti beer.
For our last night we revisited La Stua. I remember that they had great Spaetzle. And they had a nice waiter, Stefoni, who spoke good English and took good care of us. That evening, while we were dining, a bus load of Chinese tourists pulled up in front and came into the restaurant. Stefoni came by to check on us and informed us that they spoke no Italian or English and explaining the menu was a lot of fun.
Now we're off to the Cinque Terre.
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