It rained again this morning and the clouds hung low after that, so pack up was a bit damp and soggy but that’s fine. We left the campground and planned on breakfast down the road but on Sunday morning on Italy, there’s not much open.
We found a cafe after about 19kms. It was full of well to do looking people enjoying a Sunday breakfast. We looked out of place but the service was brilliant. They did toasties !! Very happy about that. The flat white was average, but the Macchiato made up for it – just great.
We weren’t sure where we’d end up today, as we had to get over the highest point on this part of the ride before we got to Cortina d’Ampezzo. It was about 50kms generally uphill followed by about 15kms of downhill into town. That’s not my favourite day’s ride at all.
Lunch was in Niederdorf which was probably the last German sounding town for this part of the trip. It’s funny how we went from German to both German and a little Italian to complete Italian in about 100 kilometres.
Before lunch, we saw the local omp pah band playing in front of the fire station as part of their annual festival. At lunch we commandeered the local square, hung out wet tent flys across seats, and ate bread, ham and some pretty stinky cheese. Just superb. As I always say – happiness is a dry tent fly.
Again, I found the climbing really tough, but the scenery was just amazing. The Dolomites are so different, and the path we followed made the job as easy as possible. The road to the top was gravel (dolomite of course), but in great condition. We were in were in the Forrest or near a lake or river most of the last 10kms. The cyclists on the trail thinned out as we got closer to the top. In fact I didn’t see many seniors on an eBikes at all. Not complaining 😁
The descent into Cortina wasn’t straight forward at all. I had to stop a million times to either photograph the stunning mountains or simply stand there and breath it all in. It was superb.
By the time we got town, we both needed a hot chocolate, and after sitting in a warm cafe eating sweets and drinking the thickest hot chocolate I’ve ever had … Riding a bike doesn’t seem to appealing, so we found a hotel in town and later sampled the local Dolomitic Pils – very nice indeed.
