Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy (Days 1 & 2)

What we did:
- We were looking at some dicey rainy days for our next few days in Cortina, so got up early from Lake Bled and road-tripped about 3 hours to capitalize on some better weather that day. Drove directly to our first hike in the Italian Dolomites, and one of the most popular hikes, Tre Cime di Lavaredo. It was a mostly sunny day and the drive was very pretty through small Italian ski towns and the Dolomiti National park. We stopped at a small Italian hotel for a hot meal before taking off on our hike.
- This hike is a circuit around 3 high peaks of the Dolomites. It felt like there was some elevation but we determined we likely weren’t higher than 8,000 feet. The clouds really came in at this point and so we didn’t get too many views of the peaks, but we did get a lot of wind and some rain! The hike was about 4 hours and of moderate difficulty, so it was great to get the legs moving again! Our first experience with Italian Refugio’s, there is one about every 1-2 miles in the Italian alps due to the many different trails you can take. This was a pleasant surprise for us compared to the Chilean Refugio’s in Patagonia which were every 7-8 miles (also very nice for bathroom and beer breaks 😊) - safe to say Italy wins the Refugio game.
- Made it back to the car and drove to our hotel. Great to be in hotel again after our prison cell of a hostel in Lake Bled. Found a nice Italian spot for dinner, split a bottle of wine that sent us to an early bed time!
- Got up the next day to a lot of rain which was expected. Had breakfast and tried to figure out how to maneuver our hikes to fit with the best weather. We ended up driving an hour away to an alpine lake with a short hike. Lake Braies is pegged as one of the most beautiful lakes in Europe! Turquoise blue lake surrounded by pines and mountains. We think that the cloudy day made the lake look even more blue than normal! We did the hour hike around the lake in some drizzly rain and then found a really great Tyrolean restaurant close by where we warmed up with some Italian/German food and wine!
- Headed back to the hotel and called Brian for his birthday - the big 60! Caught up with Helen and Brian and wished them well on their fun IU weekend. Headed down to the hotel restaurant for one of our best meals in the Italian alps!
- We got an early start for another popular hike in the area Croda Da Lago. No rain on the forecast today and the sun was trying to peak through so it was a great start! This hike wasn’t as populated as some of our others, so it became a quick highlight of the trip! Hiked 2 hours to the Croda Da Lago Refugio, grabbed lunch and some drinks before heading down the way we came. The sun came entirely out at this point and we were able to see all the surrounding peaks and the whole town of Cortina D’Ampezzo. We then set off for our next Italian Alps town - Ortisei in Val Gardena!

What we ate:
- Grocery store pastries and coffee in Lake Bled.
- Hotel Restaurant lunch near Tre Cime: Trents discovery of the Tyrolean speciality - Speck and Eggs! Essentially potatoes, prosciutto, and eggs. This will be the first of many times this dish is ordered (for all three meals of the day). Steph got spicy garlic pasta, also a huge hit for Trent to Steph’s delight!
- Il Vizietto di a Cortina - Rustic Italian restaurant with wine bottles everywhere, sat right next to the window of the kitchen to watch them make homemade pasta! Split a burrata salad, Trent got a pasta with speck (speck is EVERYWHERE in South Tyrol), and Steph got a risotto with speck. Split a bottle of wine from the local region - a Trentino red.
- Breakfast at the hotel both mornings - hard boiled eggs, pastries, fruit, yogurt, coffee
- Lunch near Lake Braies at Trattoria Mosslhof Alto Adige. Trent got (you guessed it!) speck and eggs! Steph got pasta with speck. Starting to see a trend here? Yeah me neither…
- Dinner at hotel restaurant, Dolom’eats all’Aquila. The most amazing charcuterie we’ve had in this region. Great meat and cheese, hard pass on the fried reindeer meat. Trent discovered a new meat that he was absolutely loved until he found out it was just lard. We split a steak and salad - both great! The wine was a big hit with Steph. They had a Coravin that allowed for cheaper glasses of wine from very nice bottles. Trent and Steph each tried a different local red - both were fantastic! We couldn’t decide which we liked better.
- Lunch at Croda Di Lago Refugio. Speck and cheese board with a side of fresh apricot pie! Trent got a beer and Steph got a red wine.

Fun facts:
- Cortina will be holding the 2026 Winter Olympics. On our way back from dinner the first night Trent saw a poster and said “wow they are really getting ahead for advertising the Olympics”. Steph looked at said poster and pointed out that it was an advertisement for Audi. Trent insisted it was an Olympics advertisement and googled the images only to be proven wrong. The advertisement was in fact for Audi and not the Olympics. Better luck next time, Pohlman.
- Italy reintroduced the brown bear to the Italian alps in 2000. There are now over 80 brown bears, mostly in the northeast region of the Italian alps. A brown bear had killed an alpine runner a few months earlier in that region which sparked a hot debate on the safety of both humans and brown bears. There is now a political push to relocate the brown bears to a different region that would be farther away from populated areas, a move which would be extremely costly for the Italian government.Read more