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Published: September 27th 2007
(Laura) Hi all, I’m going to take a stab at this travel blog thing, here goes…….The Dolomites are spectacular! I can’t begin to describe the amazing beauty at every turn. We drove up into the mountains through a huge storm but Lorenzo our awesome driver made it look easy. We arrived at the Seelhaus Chalet (www.hotelseelaus.it) just as the sun broke through and lit up the alpine meadows like a scene from Heidi. Just 50 miles from the Austrian border we forgot we were in Italy for a couple of days. The Seelhaus is named after a local folk tale meaning “soul is gone” (so the Devil won’t bother knocking). The Dolomites are similar in appearance and culture to the Alps and at 7800 ft I couldn’t get Julie Andrews singing, “the hills are alive…” out of my head. Most folks speak German and some even wear lederhosen. Mike was giddy with excitement looking forward to our Tyrolean adventure, (he is after all the German brother). That night our chef treated us to a 5 course Tyrolean feast fit for the Kaiser. We woke up to the sounds of sheep dogs and cowbells and a lovely dusting of snow on the
upper ridges. Amanda led about half of our group on a lengthy and challenging hike, (about 8 miles up hill!), while the rest of us pleasure seekers took a “cable car” ride up and over the beautiful landscape. Later we took a leisurely chair lift ride even higher up over the pines almost to the top of the ridge. There we hooked up with other beer swilling pleasure seekers in our group at William’s Hutte, where we sat in the sun admiring the view and the Austrian beer. Then we got down to some serious hiking, no seriously, we hiked about a mile to another Hutte just in time to drink more beer, eat more wonderful traditional Tyrolean food and enjoy the musical stylings of “Seiseralm” (Peter, Oswald, Anton and Urban) who are touring through the region. These guys were great fun and local folks from all over the area had hiked in to hear them play. They would play a short piece (30-60 seconds) and then sip their beers and schnapps, chat for a bit with their fan base catch their breath and then play some more. This went on for over an hour and no one called out
“Riccola” once. The truly admirable hikers in our group arrived in time for the show with a couple of skinned knees and a great sense of accomplishment. Chas, bad monkey and I, thoroughly exhausted after our big hike, hit the hotel’s small but perfectly appointed spa that evening for a steam and a sauna…it was heavenly. Later in the bar we played a game with our fellow travelers called “Two Truths and a Lie”; I’ll bet you didn’t know that Mike used to drive racecars for a living or that Chas was a bodyguard for Latoya Jackson in the early 80’s. Evidently Marie drove a taxi in Boston, Margaret has 3 daughters, Terry xxxxx, Garry was drafted out of college by the NBA and I have a pet boa constrictor named Bernice. It was a really fun way to get to know a little about each other while trying to guess what was truth and what was lies. Everyone believed Margaret had 3 girls (false) but didn’t believe that at one time she held a world championship bowling title (truth)! Go Margaret!
OBTW, Chas wanted everyone to have the link of our last hotel in Lake Como in case you
want to visit George Clooney…
www.hotelvillacipressi.it
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Denise
non-member comment
FABULOUS!!!
Love all the blogging and comments. It feels like we are in your back pockets! Stay safe. D