Our next stop on the Canals and Cannolis Tour is Italy. We caught an early flight from Amsterdam to Venice on Tuesday. We rented a car so we could get to the Dolomite Mountains. Here’s this year’s model, an Abarth 595 (souped-up Fiat 500). Miraculously, we fit in all of our luggage with the back seats down. Julian thought about calling it Fredo, after the middle brother in the Godfather saga. I protested. I didn’t want the car whacked in a lake before we returned it to Venice. He finally settled on Guido Carducci, a take-off on the Don Novello character on the original Saturday Night Live.
The person at the rental car counter kept asking Julian, “Are you sure you don’t want an SUV?” He assumed that all Americans would want to drive an SUV. We’ve been though this before in Europe. Large cars aren’t easy to negotiate on narrow roads. Our logic was spot on. The roads to the Dolomites have hairpin turns, crazy motorcyclists, and tour buses. Little Guido was a champ, even though my knuckles were very white by the time we got to the hotel. It’s a good thing I outgrew carsickness years ago.
The Dolomite Mountains are in northeastern Italy, near the border with Austria. The mountains are made of the same rock that give them their name, a form of limestone. The United Nations declared it a World Heritage Site. The area is popular with skiers and hikers. In fact, a world skiing competition was held in the Dolomites earlier in the year.
Our first stop in the Dolomites was Santa Cristina. Our hotel was on the outskirts of town, which meant dinner options were limited unless you took a bus downtown or to Ortisei, a couple of kilometers down the road.
We took the bus to Ortisei twice to do day hikes. This is a view of Seceda.
This is the view from an alpine meadow, Alpe di Siusi, we hiked on the second day. The hiking was a bit easier, plus we saw plenty of cattle, sheep, and goats.
The next temporary home in the Dolomites was Misurina.
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