Back to the Dolomites
We went to the Dolomites 2 years ago and had an incredible time despite losing the airline losing our bag on the way there. We loved these special Italian mountains so much we really wanted to come back and were grateful our friends Kelly & Austin wanted to come with us. We still had an amazing time, but this time their bag was lost. Next time, I think we’ll all stick to carry ons…
We were coming from a wedding in Portugal so we had planned to meet Kelly & Austin in Venice. We landed late Sunday night and their plane was scheduled to arrive early Monday morning. Grady and I booked a room at a bed and breakfast near the Venice airport above a restaurant we had a lovely dinner two years ago when waiting for our bag to (hopefully) arrive on the next flight. We have fond memories from here because we accidentally ordered a liter of wine when we forgot about metric conversions…
The “Laguna BnB” was just as great and owned by the same woman, Betty, who runs the restaurant. She loved that we’d been there two years ago and had sought out coming back. We arrived late around 11:30 but Betty said it’d be no problem because there was a “party in town and we don’t go to sleep at 9 pm like chickens”. Despite the fact that we do normally go to bed at 9, we loved her vibe immediately.
Turns out the party was a huge festival called the Omeni Festival. We googled Omeni and it means men so we were surprised this read, “Festival of Men”. That couldn’t be right. But it was. Betty confirmed that the “pensioned men in town” (retired) all had too much time on their hands and as volunteers decided to create a festival to celebrate men. They said that since there was a festival to celebrate women there should be a festival to celebrate men.
We decided to go and walked the 5 min from our BnB to the festival. For context, this is a small town called Portegrandi of 362 people and this festival was raging at midnight on a Sunday. It was full of pyrotechnics, heavy metal music, and amazing vibes. It was packed - everyone from the retirees who run the thing to families with young kids. It seemed like at least 2x the population was there.
The band took a photo with the audience that stayed until the end - we’re proud to be in it. We couldn’t understand any of the words said or sung, but we loved it. What a wild and unexpected welcome to Italy. We spent breakfast chatting with Betty, trading travel stories, and hearing from her a bunch of other places we should visit in Italy. We learned that her brother lives in Boulder, CO and she hopes to visit soon. What a small world! We just so enjoy staying at locally run places or guest rooms like this - we think the experience is unbeatable.
We were so excited that our friends were coming to meet us in Italy - how could it get better! Unfortunately, Kelly & Austin’s plane got diverted from Newark to Washington, DC and their whole itinerary was delayed. Thankfully, they’re up for anything and moved flights around to be able to get there later that day, but the change meant that their bag would arrive late.
We all agreed that Grady and I should drive up to the Dolomites in case there were other travel delays because there was a bus from Venice Airport to Cortina called the Cortina Express that Kelly and Austin could take when they landed. It wasn’t ideal, we were glad for the option and hopeful it would work.
Grady and I drove up to the mountains and stopped for pizza in a small town. I accidentally ordered the biggest pizza we’ve ever seen - even by American standards. The order was in large part due to a language barrier, but it was a happy surprise as we ate the whole thing while sitting by a lake. Nothing like a light lunch before a hike.
We hiked into the first rifugio where we passed someone unironically hiking in full lederhosen. Somewhere along the trail we got word that Kelly and Austin’s flight had landed in Venice - woohoo!
The views from the hills around the rifugio were spectacular. We spent some time wandering around to take photos when we arrived and saw lots of cows with cow bells and horses with horse bells…?
Our first dinner reminded us of how lovely the rifugios are with the 3 course meals where pasta is often the appetizer. The only funky part was the main course was a full plate of polenta with melted cheese on it. Not what you might expect, but surprisingly tasty.
We met two people from Germany and a guy from Australia who was hiking with an ALDI grocery shopping bag to carry his extra gear. The plan was for Kelly and Austin to spend the night in Cortina and meet us at the rifugio in the morning. We were excited for them to get there and see how beautiful this place was.
Grady woke up for sunrise pictures and later woke me up for breakfast. We spent time reading and relaxing in the beautiful setting while we waited for Kelly and Austin to arrive. We cheered as they rounded the corner, hiking in Chacos with huge smiles on their faces.
We had a big day ahead of us continuing our planned route up and through Cadini di Misurina. We worked our way through big rock spires and zig zagged up steep passes.
Eventually, we made our way to Rifugio Fonda Savio which was packed with day hikers. We dropped packs, had a quick (not so) light lunch of pasta bolognese, and set off to climb Via Ferrata Merlone.
This via Ferrata is steep, exposed, with long ladder sections in the beginning and more difficult climbing moves at the top. With not a lot of time before the set Rifugio dinner time of 6:30, a little bit of an aversion to the exposure, and some ominous clouds rolling in - Kelly and I decided to stop half way up and enjoyed the views from there before turning around.
Grady and Austin went up to the top and it looked stunning from pictures, but sounded scary for several of the sections. I think me and Kelly made the right call for us and we still had a blast.
We arrived 5 minutes late to dinner which was met by disapproving glares from the German hosts. Despite being the last ones to sit down we were so hungry we might have been the first to finish our phenomenal meal of salad, pasta, pork, and custard.
It was after dinner when we learned our beds were in the attic - along with 15 other people. We climbed the ladder through the scuttle hole and were greeted by angled ceilings with low beams. It was ~cozy~ but let’s just say it wouldn’t be a conforming bedroom.
That night began our week long, highly competitive, euchre tournament. After lots of cards we retreated to the attic, ducking into our beds - the thunder shaking the building and the rain pounding on the roof. This is the only rifugio Grady and I were repeating from our last visit and wildly enough - we had a night storm then too. We were hoping it’d clear before morning, unlike last time!
Grady woke up early to take photos and the weather had cleared beautifully.
We decided over breakfast to take the scenic way back to the car, which involved following a trail that hung to the cliff side with some short via Ferrata sections and stunning views.
Our paid parking was due to expire in 30 minutes with 3 miles to go, so I had the privilege of trail running back down to go save the car. I arrived to the parking lot just in time to beat any parking ticket, but as I waited for the rest of the group no parking attendant ever showed up. Didn’t need to do a hero run after all! We loaded up into the Fiat 500X and opted for a quick dip in Misurina Lake before pizza in Cortina.
The lake stop ended up not being so quick when the murky, silty bottom snatched both of my flip flops. After a long recovery mission, I got one back but the other has been condemned by Davy Jones locker.
On the drive we tried to get status on Kelly and Austin’s bag hoping it would be at their former hotel in Cortina for pickup. No such luck. It had somehow been re-routed to Frankfurt so we all started planning for where to find them some new shoes. As stylish as the Chacos are, they aren’t exactly via Ferrata and scree slope rated. Sadly, my flip flop rescue mission delay put us behind schedule and our next rifugio was much further away than we thought. Despite being 19 miles away as the crow flies… the driving time was over 2 hours.
We ordered takeout pizza and had to forgo the shoes for this next 1 nighter, but it was a quick hike - all on trail this time. Even despite our quick takeout lunch we were worried with the drive and hike in we may be late to dinner here too. After our last experience, we didn’t want to create that hubbub again.
The drive was nuts with winding 1.25 lane roads in the midst of torrential downpours. Not to mention, the public busses passed regularly and needed every bit of those 1.25 lanes. Grady navigated it well even with our manual car and at one point even had to back up more than 50 yards to let a coach sized bus pass.
That being said, the drive was gorgeous. We went through the most picturesque towns and villages with gorgeous churches perched high above town, cobblestone streets, and steep, perfectly mowed fields with wooden barns.
This rifugio looks at the back side of the Seceda Ridge which is a super popular spot in the Dolomites. We went there during our last visit but seeing it from the backside was maybe even more impressive. We hiked quickly to make it before our 6:30 dinner and got there with 15 minutes to spare. The rifugio and setting was spectacular!
This time we weren’t in an attic, but a barn with 15 of our newest closest friends. That’s part of the mystery and beauty of these rifugios is that if you book a bunk room you never know what you’ll get. It’s a good thing we got there in time for dinner because this was a gourmet meal - the best one of the trip for sure! The food was amazing, but even the dishware and way it was plated felt like a fancy restaurant. It made the plate of polenta and cheese from rifugio #1 feel a little lackluster, but maybe it’s good things just kept trending up!
The dessert may have stood out the most. It was chocolate cake and raspberry mousse and such a big serving we wondered for a minute if we were intended to split it. The euchre competition continued and this time we retreated to the barn. This was a really lovely rifugio experience.
Grady woke up early for sunrise and I followed him shortly after. It should be no surprise after how great dinner was, but this was certainly the top breakfast too. They must’ve known their audience because they brought the four of us a basket of 20 various bread rolls. They served us a dense serving of butter - each person’s the size of a thick piece of sandwich cheese. We couldn’t believe they gave us that much butter until the men next to us ran out of theirs and asked if they could use some of ours ... The coffee was even served with steamed milk which was a super welcome treat for Grady and I especially after NZ converted us into budding espresso coffee connoisseurs.
We did the short hike out and were quick to search for a store that sold outdoors gear along our drive to Rosengarten. It was finally time for some real hiking shoes for Kelly and Austin before our biggest via Ferratas of the trip! The village was tiny and had cobblestone streets. We were hoping for the best with even just one shoe offering in their sizes, but it turned out they had everything they needed! They now have very bright European trail runners so should be unstoppable.
We quickly repacked for the next two nights and drove the remaining distance to the Rosengarten area. We took the gondola up and enjoyed another (not-so) light lunch of pasta bolognese before we started on the most committing via Ferrata yet.
Some via Ferratas are optional offshoots from the main trail and others are the only way to get from point A to point B. In this case we needed to take the via Ferrata to get to our next hut. From a distance it looked like an insurmountable climb.
The route started with some wash outs from land slides which were a piece of cake compared to those we experienced in New Zealand. We zig-zagged our way along a shelf in an otherwise sheer rock face. The route and moves were all manageable, but full of somewhat intimidating class 3 and class 4 scrambling.
We were starting to wonder when we’d hit the cabled section. Soon after, we were proceeding up the cables, ladders, and some more scrambling climbs in our ascent of the face. Even still, we all agreed that this was far preferable to the exposure on via Ferrata Merlone.
The scenery got even cooler once the cables started. We started climbing amongst rock spires and the route became even more vertical. We felt accomplished when we reached the top! At the top we saw what we referred to as the Cyber Truck Rifugio. It’s brand new, crazy modern, and if you had to pick a vehicle to associate it with it’s absolutely a cyber truck. From there we climbed a short ways down the slope to Rifugio Alberto Primero where we would be spending the night. At this hut we booked a private room and enjoyed the predictability of 2 bunk beds compared to an attic or barn.
We got celebratory beers and watched people climbing the Vajolet Towers - feeling like climbers ourselves reflecting on our (not so comparable) feats of the day.
As we approached dinner time we went over to our shared table. One of the fun things about rifugios is that everyone eats dinner at the same time with a table often shared among multiple groups. That evening we shared ours with a guy named Logan who was from… New Zealand!
We should’ve guessed that he was a Kiwi when we saw him wearing a Stone Creek Shirt (brand sold at most NZ outdoors stores) and a Macpac jacket (a NZ store we frequented a lot), but somehow we didn’t put it together. Turns out, he’s from a small town on the West Coast which is the most rugged and least densely populated area of New Zealand. It’s also a place we spent a lot of time. We enjoyed chatting with someone who was intimately familiar with some of the niche West Coast places we have very fond memories from. Plus, the 4 of us shared lots of recommendations for the western US as he said he really wanted to visit the desert in Utah. All of us were exhausted so we went to sleep early, but Kelly woke up in the middle of the night and saw the stars were OUT. None of us were quite as motivated about getting out of bed then, but seeing her photos made us think we should have been.
After a good breakfast we made our way down to the valley floor via a lot of steep switchbacks and from there, back up towards the Pass.
We stopped for lunch at Rifugio Passo Principe and got, shocker, another round of pasta bolognese. Nothing like another “light” meal before more climbing! While we were scarfing down our 11 am pasta we again ran into Logan. He was planning to do the same via Ferrata as us so we invited him to join us. As I was offering everyone sunscreen I think Logan was surprised to see it was our leftover New Zealand Cancer Society Sunscreen that’s now protected us in NZ, Bali, Nepal, at home in CO, and Italy. We started the via Ferrata and were met with scrambling before we hit the cables. This route was fairly vertical and worked its way back and forth in these little cracks on an otherwise sheer face.
The five of us had fun negotiating the hand and foot holds along the way and looking back at the valley floor below that we’d hiked in the morning.
We identified from trip reports that the crux of the via Ferrara would be an exposed, unprotected (no cables) ridge line at the top. For someone like me who doesn’t like exposure, it was scary but I felt so accomplished when we got to the other side.
From there the via ferrata continued down where it’d drop us off on the other side of the mountain. At the bottom, we branched off towards our final Rifugio and said bye to Logan who was going to go back over a pass the other direction. It was stunning as we approached Rifguio Antermoia. The building itself was gorgeous with a big back deck and outside seating and the location was hard to beat. We were quick to grab a table outside and spent the rest of our afternoon relaxing there. We reflected on the trip and talked about our favorite via Ferrata, rifugio, meal, and more - feeling accomplished for everything we’d done in the past week and thankful for the amazing weather we had to do it
We also talked about our exit strategy for the next day recognizing we needed to fully retrace our steps with some additional distance to go around the mountains and over a pass - skipping the via Ferratas. Normally the distance would be no concern, but we had an international flight to catch in a city three hours away, so timing was critical. Gaia and caltopo disagreed significantly on the amount of vert (2500 ft vs 3700 ft) which left us feeling a bit more uncertain. We decided to all get up, have breakfast, and be moving at 8 to hopefully leave ourselves enough time for hiking, driving, and maybe even lunch if we were lucky.
The hike out went really smoothly and we all felt great. We crushed the timing and got out with time to spare so after getting back to the car we found a lake for a swim and a restaurant to grab pizza. Our food choices were becoming predictable… I think we’ve eaten pizza for every non-Rifugio meal and pasta bolognese for every hiking lunch - an excellent combination.
We stopped in the town of Moena for lunch. It was an adorable town and seemed to be mostly all Italians. When we walked in and somewhat hesitantly asked for a table for 4 in English, the hostess quickly got the sociable manager who was the only English speaking employee. He said he’d personally take care of us. We ordered our 4 pizzas, some waters, and Austin ordered a cappuccino which left the manager laughing. He said “pizza and cappuccino? Not together! You all do weird things” We felt as though we might have left more of an impression that we’d hoped.
We capped off the trip with towering cones of gelato - a perfect end to an incredible trip to Italy. After a cool, refreshing gelato we packed our bags in the shadeless parking lot and returned to the airport where Kelly and Austin claimed their lost bag. The similarities to our last trip were uncanny. We also picked up our bag the day we flew out and Austin had to go back into the same “baggaglia” room that Grady did to reclaim ours. They checked the bag back to the US and were just grateful that it made it from its mysterious pitstop in Frankfurt to Venice.
After an amazing week in Italy our trip had sadly come to a close and we boarded our flight to go home by way of Istanbul. It was another incredible trip to the Dolomites and made even more special this time to be able to share it with our great friends. It’s one of our favorite international places to go & I could definitely see us going back again. Until next time!
