In
my youth I was never particularly interested in Geography. At the tender age of
twelve I took up the clarinet at school to avoid Geography lessons. Sorry, Mrs
Constable, but there you have it. One thing I can say about this motorhoming
lark is that it has improved my European geographical knowledge. Just take the
Dolomites. Before September 2016 I could definitely have said they were a
mountain range and could probably have said they were in Europe, but I doubt I
could have gone beyond that. Now I can say they are in the northern Italian
Alps, were once part of Austria and spectacularly consist of sheer, craggy
slabs and pinnacles of pink-grey rock (no idea what type of rock - my geology
is way behind my geography!).
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| The start of the Dolomites for us (and a hang gliding launch point). |
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| And we all enjoy the view! |
It’s a beautiful region with
magnificent rock formations smoothing out into gracefully rolling alpine
pastures, and timber balconied chalets straight out of Heidi, with enough lederhosen
and frilly dresses to reinforce the impression that becoming part of Italy
after WWI didn’t change the traditions from earlier centuries. They’ve kept
some of the German language too, along with something more local called
‘Ladin’, which is apparently still spoken in some areas. Place names can be a
bit confusing, with Italian and German versions, such as Vipiteno/Sterzing and
Bressanone/Brixen, but this mix of cultures means the food has turned out to be
one of my favourite crossings of Italian and German cuisine.
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| Monte Bondone sosta |
A free sosta, overlooking
the alpine meadow and mountain coach trip restaurant near the summit of Monte
Bondone, marked the start of the Dolomites for us. The temperature got down to
6°C in the middle of September and everything was feeling very autumnal. The
leaves had been falling from the trees since we got to Italy a couple of weeks before,
but you can sort of ignore that with daytime temperatures still at 32°C. We wondered
when the snow would reach this mostly empty sosta, as it was surely built for
winter tourism, though with no electricity on offer.
We had a bit of a false
start leaving this sosta though, involving a closed road, a mountain race of
some kind and a policemen whose “how on earth am I going to explain this to the
English people in this van” look quickly turned to a smile as Rob spoke to him
in Italian, following which we were forced to retrace our steps back down
almost to Riva del Garda, before getting on the road to Trento. The sosta
places in Trento were easy to find, as they were right in the centre, but I
reckon you have to get there early to take one of the 6 places (2 in a layby by
the river and 4 on a large car park). These places are a bargain with 24 hours
on the ticket for a small number of Euros, but if you can’t get one you can
easily park in the car park for 2 hours at a time - which is worth it for
getting such a short walk to the historical centre.
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| Trento |
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| Trento |
Trento is famous for a
series of ecclesiastical councils held in the 16thC to determine Catholic
doctrine in response to the Reformation, and every palace in town that housed
any members of the councils has an information sign, thankfully in Italian and
English, telling you about the building and who stayed there. I thought that
the cathedral was particularly attractive both inside and out, with a delicate
pink stone exterior, Romanesque features and a refreshingly plain interior,
without the added swirls and gilding of the baroque. It also has two
interesting flights of stone stairs on either
side of the nave, which presumably take you up to the bell
towers and to the galleries featured on the outside.
The spacious square beside the
cathedral is home to the bishop’s palace on one side, a central fountain and
some 15thC palaces with beautiful exterior painting, though to be fair, the
whole historic centre is dotted with painted palaces, making a leisurely stroll
very worthwhile. Despite it being Sunday when we were there, we found many
shops and restaurants were open, which meant we could be tempted by local
cheeses and salamis, and partake in a lunch of very Germanic bread dumplings in
a very Italian Bolognese style ragù.
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| Bedollo fair |
It doesn’t take long to ‘do’
Trento, though there is also plenty there for those who want to linger. We left
at about 3 p.m. and headed into the Dolomites proper on a road which took us
through Baselga del Pinè and into the general Pinè area. At Bedollo, which
seemed to stretch into several villages, we stopped by a small lake to have
lunch before moving on to yet another part of the Bedollo set-up where we
stumbled across a rural festival to do with bringing the cows down from their
summer pastures. There were some very festive cows, wearing headdresses of
fresh flowers and fir branches. The men showed off many a bare knee below
lederhosen and a myriad collection of pointy felt hats, mostly sporting
feathers in their colourful braiding bands. The ladies were largely in milkmaid
ensembles. As we arrived some strapping chaps were performing in some kind of
whip cracking competition. It looked like jolly hard work and the puffs of
smoke given off with the cracking reminded me of the caps boys at school used
to throw on to the floor to explode. It
definitely frightened the dogs, who had to go back to the safety of the van.
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| Bedollo fair |
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| Bedollo fair |
To Rob’s glee, there was a great
deal of very local produce for sale, with much free tasting of cheeses, salami,
speck (a smoked, cured ham of the Südtirol rather like prosciutto), apples galore,
crauti (sauerkraut), wurst and beer - all testament to the area’s muddled
Germanic/Italian culture. Of course, so much sampling and purchasing so late in
the afternoon meant we had reached 7 p.m. and really needed to find somewhere
to stop for the night. Little did we know that search would provide one of
those little motorhoming adventures that you can tell all your friends at
dinner parties when you return home.
The main road towards Cavalese did not look
promising for the sort of quiet layby or picnic spot we tend to favour for wild
camping, so we took a side road at Molina di Femme and headed upwards, and
upwards, and upwards. We passed a couple of good parking spots near an outdoor
adventure centre, but we had our ‘let’s see what’s round the next bend’ heads
on. That’s why we also ignored a couple of off road spots where logging lorries
load up. We often find good viewpoint spots at top of passes, and this was a
good, wide road, so we headed on and up, and it began to get dark, then it
began to rain and suddenly it was a narrow road with many hairpin bends. We
head out above the tree line and straight into the clouds and we had no idea
where the top was likely to be, so Rob started to try a 300 point turn, but I
think my screaming “we’re all going to die” might have been a bit off-putting,
so he abandoned that one. Eventually, at above 2000m Rob had had enough and
just stopped in a tiny passing place and said he wasn’t going to drive any
further. He got out, had a little walk around, took a peek round the next bend
and found a mountain refuge/restaurant, a large helicopter landing circle and a
little viewpoint parking place. So, with great relief, we stopped, closed the
shutters and cooked dinner.
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| The Manghen Pass looked fine the next morning |
The temperature got down to 3°C in the night, and it
was quite windy right up there on the pass. The dogs stayed under their little
blankets all night, which are actually our spare towels because we didn’t think
the dogs would need blankets at this time of year, but they are thin skinned
sighthounds who cry when they get cold and try to snuggle in with us. Next time
we do this I’m bringing their PJs and proper blankets.
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| You have to imagine it in the dark with added rain and fog |
By 7 a.m. the next day we began to hear cars passing
us. Were there commuters going over this mountain pass? Then the motorcyclists
arrived to take pictures of the views from what we found out, because we could
now see the tourist map board, was the Manghen Pass. It did all look so much
better in the clear morning light, and, of course, the drive down was much
easier, and we passed the first cyclists of the day making their slow ascent.
When we passed a cattle lorry we did feel a bit foolish about our worries the
previous evening, but you had to be there in the dark, the rain and the fog to
appreciate that!
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| Campitello fi Fassa |
Our next stop was much easier - the Val di Fassa - a
proper Dolomite area, with all the accompaniments of winter skiing, much of it
being used for non-snow related activities to stretch the business viabilities
throughout the year - ski-lifts are great for hikers who just want to walk
downhill, and for the many hang-gliders who take a more floaty route. We had
decided that it was time we used a proper campsite again and availed ourselves
of electricity and laundry facilities. There are several campsites around
there, but we went for the prettiest at Campitello di Fassa (and most expensive
at €32), since I was going to be left there to my own devices while Rob took
himself off on a day of cycling the mountain passes.
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| The campsite was expensive, but you pay for the view! |
Just beyond Campitello the valley gives way to some
of the highest and most impressive of the Dolomite peaks, divided into distinct
sheer-walled massifs such as the Sella and Sassolungo Groups, or glacier-topped
Marmolada. The road layout allows a circuit of about 50km, known as the
Sellaronda, that crosses four passes as it circles the Sella group and offers
breathtaking views of the others, and it was this that I set out to ride.
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| Man and bike |
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| Dolomites |
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| More Dolomites |
Even at Campitello we were at 1400 altitude, and it
was a cold start at 8am, but the climb to the Sella Pass at 2244m warmed me up.
From here it was a quick, short descent to a col before another (shorter) climb
to the Gardena Pass at 2234m. The sun was out and everything looked great, and
by early afternoon I even dared ride bare-legged for a while. I was far from
the only cyclist out, though we were outnumbered easily by motorbikes. The
route continued round the east of the massif, over the easily-missed Campolungo
Pass, a mere pimple at 1870m, and I had a coffee stop at Arabba before tackling
the final climb to the Pordoi Pass at 2239m. By now my legs were starting to feel the strain.
The summit of the Pordoi Pass was a vast expanse of
car parks and tourist tat by an enormous cable-car station below more sheer
cliffs, but it also marked the start of the exhilarating last descent, and I
zoomed back down to Lesley and the dogs in near-record time.
We left the Val di Fassa and headed
upwards to visit a couple of the passes Rob had tackled on his bike ride - the Sella
Pass and the Gardena Pass. The road passes quite close to the sheer walls of
rock I’d viewed from the valley and there were ski-lifts everywhere, some huge
and some tiny, which looked a bit frightening to me.
We took the road through the
Badia Valley, where they will hold the Ski Olympics in December 2016, and then
took a side road to San Vigilio hoping to find the sosta in our book. We did
and it was large and very attractive, but also very closed, so we continued up
the tiny valley into the national park. Again, this was a really pretty area
consisting of sheer sides coming down to wooded lower levels, and a wide flat
valley bed covered in very white, small stones, over which roamed a great many
free range cows. It would have been perfect for wild camping if it weren’t for
the many signs telling us that they didn’t want any kind of camping anywhere at
all round there, and since the road didn’t go any further than a large car park
and a big, commercial refuge-cum-restaurant, we were forced to retrace our
steps (so to speak).
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| Parco naturale di Fanes-Sennes-Braies |
We were a bit stuck for
somewhere to stay the night, to be honest. There were no more nearby sostas in
our book, and we were at a loss for which road might offer up a suitable
overnight spot, but it would certainly not be on the main road between
Bressanone (aka Brixen) and Brunico (aka Bruneck). Almost on the flip of a coin
we turned towards Bressanone, from where we planned to leave the Dolomites, and
indeed, Italy, via the Brenner Pass.
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| Walkers' car park overnight spot |
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| Nice walk |
At Chienes we headed into the hills once
again and luckily spotted a brown tourist sign showing parking off this road
and ended up in a lovely walkers’ car park near Terento village, where we spent
a very quiet penultimate night in Italy and where even in late September, on a
Thursday, hikers began to arrive and park up from 7:30 a.m. By 10 a.m. the car
park was very full, probably because the reasonably easy walk from there goes
to a snack bar in the pretty South Tyrolean meadows some 40 minutes away.
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| Nice walk |
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| Nice walk |
