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The rain of last night has cleared the skies for today and we woke to bright sunshine giving a different look to the mountain tops except for a little bit of cloud that looked like it would clear soon.
We have really enjoyed our 3 nights in this very well presented apartment and it would have been good to spend another day or two here but Croatia beckons tomorrow and we need to get ourselves part way there by driving back to a location on the plains.
We said goodbye to our hostess who owned the building the 4 apartments were sited in.We said we would recommend her apartments to anyone from NZ who think of coming this way.She struggled with our English when we had arrived getting her daughter to translate and leaving was no different as we don't think she understood too much of what we said and her daughter on this occasion wasn't there to translate.
We could have taken the easy way and returned down to the plains by the road we came in on but that would mean we would miss so much more of what the Dolomites have by way of fantastic
scenery and anyway Gretchen's brother Chris had recommended we take in a place called Misurina where he had passed through in summer a couple of years ago and said we would be impressed by the mountains there too.
So with a track plotted to head further north towards the Austrian border we set off carrying on the road towards Brunico that we had turned off from to get La Valle when we had arrived.With the outside temperature at 12C and in bright sunlight we followed the river which was swollen,but not in flood,with snow melt.
The SS244 is a windy road that wanders through a gorge until it meets up with the E66 where we took a turn towards the east.Here the views of the jagged mountains became more expansive as the valley was wider.Just like the other day when we had started to drive into the mountain area the views of the mountains changed with every turn of the road.Traffic on this road was heavier as it connected to the A22/13 which travels into Austria over the Brenner Pass and down to Innsbruck so there was more commercial trucks.However the drivers in this part of Italy are
more cautious than their counterparts elsewhere we had travelled and didn't take the risks they often did in passing meaning we could enjoy the views while driving.
At Toblach we turned south on the SS51 and the vistas got more dramatic as the valley closed in resulting in sheer,towering walls of rock both sides of us and always in the distance ahead a panorama of more snow capped mountains.
The drive was beginning to remind us of driving through the Rockies in Canada or the USA and a particular stretch called 'The Road to the Sun' that we had driven during a trip there a few years ago.The only difference was we were basically driving along a flat valley floor whereas in the US Rockies we had been driving up a mountain road.
Not too far after turning off at Toblach we came across a World War 1 cemetery where there were a couple of hundred grave sites of those killed during the conflict between the Austro/Hungarian army and the Italians(who were part of the Allies although they virtually fought a war of their own against the Axis forces).An information board,thankfully also in English as well as
Italian and German,gave detail of a field hospital that had been set up behind tcemetary site for soldiers to be bought to from the various battlefields in the area for treatment of their wounds.Interestingly many of those buried here did not die from war wounds but from natural causes or mishaps such as being caught in an avalanche.We always find these war cemetaries very interesting as they give you a snapshot of the history of what was happening in a part of the country at a point in time and there are always stories to be learnt.
By now we were stopping every couple of kilometres to take more video and photos of the mountain vistas and on more than one occasion we had to stop and turn around to go back to a sight we had seen but had not been able to stop in time or had traffic to contend with at the time a particular view was there.
We arrived at the turnoff onto the SS48 and soon realised that we had another mountain pass to get over to get to the place recommended to us by Chris to take a look at.What we got,
that he wouldn't have seen in his summer drive,was a scene of white ahead of us as we topped the 1756m pass.The snow on the flat land ahead of us was still to melt.
An even more amazing scene was to come as we drove over a small rise in the road and then descending towards Lake Misurina and that was to see that the lake was almost fully covered by ice.The spring thaw had not yet come fully to this small lake yet.
The large hotel at the edge of the lake was closed and presumably once winter is over they take a break before the summer holidaymakers who come to cycle of walk the tracks in the area arrive.
With more mountains to take in we reversed the car to the lakes edge and opened the liftback so we could enjoy a boot lunch with the mountain vistas and the frozen lake all in view.It was quite a United Nations with other cars from European countries arriving and leaving the lakes edge while we ate lunch.We are still waiting for the first person to notice our red French number plates and come up jabbering away
in French to us like happened 4 years ago with our Eurolease in several countries.Just because you drive a car with French number plates doesn't mean you speak or understand French !
The road descended down the other side of the pass beyond the lake and there were more stops for photos and videos.
At Lozzo di Cadore we had the option of carrying on down the SS51 to the E27 which would have been the easier route.But in the true tradition of the BBA V2 we never take(well hardly ever) take the easy option and we crossed the river onto the SS52 in a more eastward course and started a climb to another pass.This one was a little different for as we got to a point where it looked like the only way forward was to go through a tunnel,that is exactly what happened.Except this one was a one way tunnel where traffic passed through in one direction only every 7 minutes on a traffic light.We had a 3 minute wait when we arrived at the portal and watched the clock on a post count down.The traffic lights only operated between 6 am and 11pm at night
so for the 7 hours when the traffic lights didn't dictate your progress you would take a risk and head into the tunnel not knowing what might be coming the other.Although realistically what traffic would use this mountain road in the dead of night anyway.
Our turn came and we drove through the 600metre tunnel and emerged into another valley with more mountains all around although by now the snow cover on the tops was less than in the higher altitudes we have come down from.
We could tell we were now descending towards the plains much more quickly as the trees had all their leaves and those that had flowers had finished.All the way beside us was a river where the water was a glacial blue which indicated that the snow melt that was entering the river was not being contaminated by soil the water was passing through to get into the river.
A 4km long tunnel was ahead and by the time we emerged at the other end the Dolomites were behind us and so we ended 3 wonderful days driving and walking amongst a fascinating range of craggy mountain peaks rather unique on this
planet.
As we continued our descent towards Pordeone the weather had changed from the fine,sunny skies we had had all day to rather overcast conditions.One thing that remained constant through was the temperature and in fact as we got further away from the Dolomites the temperature went up and it was 25C by the time we reached our hotel for the night
We dined out with the locals at a local pizzeria to end what had been an interesting and rewarding day of driving to complete our time in the Dolomites and we headed to bed with great memories of towering, jagged snow covered peaks,rivers of all hues of green and blue and mountainsides of green grass where the small villages made up the small population of a unique area of Italy.
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LeighB
non-member comment
Wow!
Wow, what stunning scenery! Might now need to add this to our places to visit list, however not sure it would be quite the same without the snow (and we know how much I love the cold!)