I’m here in the Dolomites to do a ski marathon on Sunday, but I got here on Wednesday to give me some time to settle in. The race begins in Moena, which is the town where I’m staying. It’s in a narrow valley below steep mountains. This is the Sudtirol part of Italy, called Alto Adige in Italian. The signs are in German and Italian and lots of the foods in the supermarkets are typical of this area: speck, canderli, spaetzle, and several other tasty things that I don’t know the names for.
Yesterday I drove 15-20 minutes up into the mountains (Passo San Pellegrino) and found 20km of beautifully groomed talks with excellent snow. The first 10km was free but I had to buy a ticket for the rest: €3. OMG!! The cappuccino I got just before I skied the second half cost €2.30.
Today I drove 35 minutes way up into another set of mountains, on the other side of the valley, and found endless trails with sunshine and views of the valley towards Bolzano. This was Passo Lavasè and it cost all of €8.50. 
Amazing snow, incredible views, and tons of very excellent skiers from Germany, Sweden, Norway, Russia, Czech Republic, and who knows where else. I barely heard Italian. I was quite intimidated. I switched to skate skiing to be out of their way. They’d come fitting by in the tracks and blow past me. Sheesh!
I ended up getting lost and skiing a lot of extra kilometres but eventually found a restaurant near the tracks way out on a ridge and was able to recover enough to get myself up the hill to the parking lot. I’m so not in shape!
The views as I skated around the mountain sides were absolutely incredible.
And to finish, the best shot from today. View it sideways if you can to get the full impression. 