Escape the Heat (July): Dolomiti Prep

We have a two-part plan to escape the summer heat — which has been brutal … unexpectedly so, I might add.

Part one of the plan will be taking us to the mountains for the first half of July. We would have made it a longer trip. Except that we have some commitments already in the works for the latter part of the month … not the least of which is our Permesso di Soggiorno fingerprinting appointment on 21 July.

Details for our August plans will be forthcoming in a separate FindPenguins trip … once the prep work is further along.

In the meantime, A few quick notes on our July plans …

📌 JUNE 22: dates set as 1-18 July for a train-car-train trip. A two-base trip instead of a road trip as the latter requires more planning than we can throw at this ‘July escape’ in the short time we have before departure. Logistics pending.

📌 JUNE 23: The choice of two suitable high-altitude bases came down to availability … or lack thereof at this late date. Budget was a big consideration as the prices were beyond the pale in most places. Also, with summer-season restrictions in place for popular activities and locations, it was essential to have a place where we could chill … in the event this trip turns into more of a staycation than an active vacation.

Eventually, we settled on two apartments. The photos look good; the reviews are excellent. The towns are not as high as I had hoped they would be, but beggars can’t be choosers.

Fingers crossed the temps are indeed cooler in the mountains as neither property has air conditioning … which seems to be par for the course for almost every listing we checked out.

📌 JUNE 24: Mui managed to book us a rental car from Sixt. We will pick it up from the Bolzano train station and return it there.

Found the trains we want to take to get us up to Bolzano and back to Bologna. However, the Trenitalia app must be having problems since we could not complete the purchase. Will try again tomorrow.

📌 JUNE 25: Train tickets purchased. Had to use PayPal instead of ApplePay. Not sure what the problem was since ApplyPay always worked seamlessly before … and continues to do so with other vendors.

That pretty much completes the logistics work. Now to start packing … ugh!Read more