The Italian Adventure - The Mighty Dolomites

Well, here we are, its Easter and the four of us are off to beautiful Northern Italy with our very own Italian guide, Carlo, to show us his home. The next few blogs will be able the adventures of Leah, Hannah, Carlo and Laki in Italy!

Carlo and I left work early and met Leah and Laki at the Victoria Train Station to catch the Gatwick Express. With only the one minor mishap of Leah and I getting our liquids searched, and then thrown out, we were on our plane (with a bag of Leah’s lollies) - destination: Milan, Italy.

Some how we were the last to go through customs and immigration, which meant we had to wait for almost an hour at the back of the queue to get our hire car! However, lucky for us, good thing come to those who wait. Thanks to the fact that the car we booked had already being taken and Carlo’s 'charm', we managed to score ourselves a brand-spanking new 2007 BMW station wagon with only 9kms - yes 9! - on the clock, for us to cruise around Italy in - Awesome!

Carlo gave us a little mini tour of Milan on the way to his house via the infamous 'San Siro' stadium, and meet Carlo’s dad, Fabio and his father’s girl friend, Marta, who had vacated the house for us :)


We got up at 5am, after only a few hours sleep, jumped in our BMW and headed for the motorway, picking up Carlo’s friend Francesca on the way, while the rest of us slept.

When I woke up to found ourselves driving into the foothills of the Dolomites. The countryside was lined with old stone houses set into the hills. Each village had its own church, recognisable by its campanile protruding above the surrounding buildings, while the rest of the landscape was occupied by vineyards and steep mountain faces.

We weaved our way up into the mountains, and before we knew it, we were up in the snow! We stopped to look at the dam of Lago di Paneveggio, and also saw some wild deer at a Parc di Paneveggio a little further along. While we were walking down to the lookout to see the deer, Leah managed to fall over in the one small patch of ground that wasn’t covered in snow and got a rather muddy backside! And therefore leaving herself exposed to being called 'Dirty-Bum' by Carlo’s charming Italian sense of humour for the rest of the trip.

We carried on through the mountains, stopping for a few good photo opps - although Carlo was horrified at my bare feet in the snow! We had brunch right on top of one of the snowy mountains, at 'Riiugio Capanna Paggo Valles' - 2032m above sea level!

We climbed up in the snow a bit to get some photos of the mountains and were followed by our new friend, the infamous Saint Bernard Dog.

We carried along the windy roads, admiring the ever-changing, but always magical, view through the mountains. We stopped at another village Falcade Alto, high on the hill top, which provided stunning views down to the valley floor where lay a constellation of houses and churches all encapsulated by sudden and steep snow-capped mountains behind.

The road weaved down into another scenic township, Alleghe, and its beautiful mountainous lake, Lago de Alleghe. We stopped to have a looking around, including the inside of the small church (but only small in comparison to some of the large cathedrals we have seen).

We stopped at a pub most of the way up the next mountain, which had commanding views over the valley far far below and of the famous ‘Civetta’ mountain - Carlo’s favourite.
We sat out in the hot sun having a few drinks and just chillaxed for a bit. It was very peaceful being high up in the mountains in the middle of nowhere.

After most of the car had fallen back asleep, we arrived at Longarone, the site of possibly the worst civil engineering disaster to date, the Diga del Vajont dam. It was built despite there being geological concerns of the surrounding ground, and nothing more was done about it. However, one grim eveing on the 9th October in 1963, the hillside gave way into the lake behind the dam sending a deadly tidal wave down to the village below, and sweeping away 2,000 people. The dam itself was relatively undamaged, and remains there to this day - minus the water.


We followed the path of a glacial looking mountain river until we reached the township of Baros, with it beautiful lake, Lago di Baros, with steep hillsides in the background, and once again we were out of the car for more photo opportunities.

We drive right through to Udine, where we got some supplies form the supermarket before it closed. Leah and I found this quite an experience in itself. Everything was so different to home or even the UK. Most things were not pre-packaged / pick up off the shelf kinda shopping, and a lot of the things we didn’t even recognise, but we did happen to find the same toast bread that we love so much from Venice!

We drove into the small village of Torreano, full of old stone Italian houses with shutters and flower boxes, where we found Carlo’s family holiday home.
After spending 12 hours in the car we were happy to finally stretch our legs properly! We were greeted by his Uncle Pablo, and got the guided tour of their lovely 4 level house full of antiques and other collectables.



Leah and I were given the biggest room of the house: the top floor penthouse. We went for dinner at a little local restaurant in amongst the vineyards, just around the corner from his house. Carlo warned us that we might get funny looks (including him) because we were not locals - gosh! Are we that far out in the country side!?.

We sat down at a table in the corner and following a cheeky grin from Carlo, he told me to look up…. I almost screamed! And jumped at least a metre sideways as I was to find a large boar head on the wall directly above mine and Leah’s head! - check out the photo!

We tried some of the local delicacies, Polenta - kind of like doughy chunks of corn?, and I even tried some of Carlo’s ‘Rodger Rabbit’ - which actually tasted quite a lot like chicken!

Tomorrow we are off to see the local town Cividale, and also the coast at Grado! Can’t wait!

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