Dolomites Day 1

After a long travel day the day before, and a nightmare car hire story for the ages, we arrived in Cortino D’Ampezzo. What a beautiful town! Very alpine with wooden little chalets and restaurants with a very traditional feeling.

Our first hike was a beauty. We started our hike with a steep incline. As our trail guide I didn’t really have a reference point for 1km of elevation over the first 5kms, and boy did we feel it. With our food and water pack, Teddy’s bag and Teddy himself, we really earned our stripes in this ascent. At one point it was a full climb using hands to get up rocks with Teddy hanging off my chest, catching the sweat dripping of my nose. Lara also did very well a few months post baby, this was not a hike for the faint hearted, but the views were spectacular.

Alpine green forests, and where these cliffs or rock which weren’t a typical triangle summit, but would just form columns that went up and up. There were photo opporunities everywhere you turned. Teddy earns a special mention for not just a lack of crying, but almost non stop chatter and laughter. Every person passing us got a hello and smile from him. He was certainly a crowd favourite.

While at some point it felt like we would never make it back to the car, after more than 5 hours we made it. Legs burning, mood wavering, we were there.

Dinner was a quiet affair, back at our lovely wooden old chalet. We cooked up some pasta and had beautiful cheap Italian wine. What more could you ask for.Read more