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A Stay in The Dolomites

August 14, 2003

Dear Friends and Families,

Well, our trip was ending and we were heading north. The plan was to drive into the Dolomite Mountains and spend two or three days in a pleasant alpine town; a good plan for any time other than the busiest week of the Italian vacation season.

Marianne started by calling the dozen or so places listed in our various guidebooks, but each one was full. Most added something to the effect that "everything" was full (and we were fools for looking so late). No matter, we hit the road with blind faith.

The drive was spectacular as soon as we hit the mountains. We stayed on small two-lane roads and enjoyed warm sun, spectacular vistas, and Italian drivers crossing over the centerline. They really just take lines and signs as suggestions. It makes mountain travel all the more exciting.

We stopped in most small towns along the way looking for a place to stay. The story was always the same: "no". (Sometimes the story was delivered with that body language that appended "you fool".) Still, we headed deeper into the mountains.

Along the way, we went past one valley with active forest fires. We saw a helicopter swinging a water bucket from the river up into the smoky hills. We had not seen rain in weeks so we could imagine how dry the forests were. However, shortly after we saw the flying bucket, we saw dark clouds and a couple drops on our windshield. We stopped and put up the top just before the skies opened and God showed the helicopter how it's really done. This was undoubtedly welcome to the locals, but we'd have preferred to continue top-down as we searched for a room.

At mid-day, we stopped at a huge mountain resort. It looked like it must have several hundred rooms and it was inconceivable that all would be full. Inconceivable but true. We went to the restaurant for lunch to at least gain some benefit from the stop. In all of Italy, we'd probably had only two or three bad meals. This stop added one more. Oh well, I guess it was a sign that we needed to leave the country.

Leaving Italy turned out harder than planned. We were following a very pleasant two-lane road on its crooked path toward Austria when our side of the road came to a halt and the other side emptied. This is always a bad sign. Then about a half-mile ahead, we saw a medevac helicopter coming in for a landing, a more ominous sign. For the next hour, we sat almost stationary, enjoying the scenery but thinking that any remaining room vacancies were quickly disappearing.

When we finally moved, we passed a curve in the road where a tow truck was just loading a motorcycle and the cause for the medevac and the traffic jam became clear. Motorcycles have been a bane on all our travels on the twisty back roads. They roar past, curves or not. They cross the centerline into the oncoming lane, but that's common in Italy, I guess. It was almost inevitable that on a day with the first rain in weeks, one of them would have serious problems.

(We have a friend who lives near the hills of southern Germany that are favorites of young moto riders. He tells us that every spring, the local doctors prepare to perform an increased number of organ transplants because they can count on a batch of new young organs from the unlucky. Consequently, we have started to refer to the reckless riders as "body parts". )

At this point in our room search, our luck started to turn. We got off the road at Rio di Pustena and found a town with lots of hotels and not too many cars. The first hotel was full of course, but we headed up the hill in search of others. I saw a "Zimmer Frei" sign and we stopped at a small farm/hotel. They had a room for one night and we took it, despite its "simplicity". We'd figure out where to stay one day at a time.

After settling in, we walked back into town and explored "Rio". It's a nice village, a mixture of Austrian and Italian where the local language is German, or at least some form of it. It was sufficiently Italian to have a gelato shop, so we had the last of our Italian snacks, returned to the room, and thought of tomorrow's possibilities. Another story.

Take care, stay in touch, and don't cross the centerline (especially on a motorcycle.)

John and Marianne

The Dolomites are dramatic crags of granite. This is the sort of view we had pictured from our as-yet-not-reserved hotel.

This was the real view. The line of hotels on the left were all full of course. A line of cars would crawl through each town. The line of parked cars on the right was generally as uninterrupted as the traffic steam.

The small village of Erto did have space - no hotel or restaurant or almost anything, but it did have space and a notched hillside location, probably created centuries earlier.

This wood carver was the only business we saw in Erto. He was almost the only person we saw as well. I wondered why this town was so empty and unrepaired when almost every other place had been carefully maintained or reconstructed.

Waiting almost an hour for an accident to clear, we sat in traffic, looking at this sign. It was an annoying reminder that we were stuck far from hotel possibilities.

Eventually, this was our home for the night. I have to point out that our zimmer, the last available, was on the back side and had a view of bushes, garbage cans, and the main street in town. ("Main" not really a problem since traffic slowed to a one-car-per-hour pace overnight.)

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	The Dolomites are dramatic crags of granite. This is the sort of view we had pictured from our as-yet-not-reserved hotel.		This was the real view. The line of hotels on the left were all full of course. A line of cars would crawl through each town. The line of parked cars on the right was generally as uninterrupted as the traffic steam.
The small village of Erto did have space - no hotel or restaurant or almost anything, but it did have space and a notched hillside location, probably created centuries earlier.		This wood carver was the only business we saw in Erto. He was almost the only person we saw as well. I wondered why this town was so empty and unrepaired when almost every other place had been carefully maintained or reconstructed.
	Waiting almost an hour for an accident to clear, we sat in traffic, looking at this sign. It was an annoying reminder that we were stuck far from hotel possibilities.		Eventually, this was our home for the night. I have to point out that our zimmer, the last available, was on the back side and had a view of bushes, garbage cans, and the main street in town. ("Main" not really a problem since traffic slowed to a one-car-per-hour pace overnight.)