Dateline: Dobbiaco/Toblach in the Dolomites italy.
Yes, it’s incredible here. And, who knew, it’s cheap to do XC skiing here! Trail pass: €8 daily. Equipment rental: €10-12 daily for full kit. Awe inspiring scenery: free. Totally worth it! Is 5 hours from my house. Easy drive.
The hardest part of writing today’s blog is choosing which photos to include. OMG!
Two days ago the night was very windy, so the trail was converted, and I mean Covered, with pine needles. Not great skiing. In fact,I ended up taking my skis off and walking around the Dobbiaco Lake to avoid ruining them. Here’s some trail-side art and you can see the pine needles all over the trail.
I stopped at a trail-side lake-side restaurant for a cup of tea. When I arrived, the lake looked like this:
While I sat (with a blanket over my lap), it changed to this.
So I drank up and headed back. The snow didn’t last long, but it was dramatic.
Yesterday, I was in a different valley with some lovely wide open spaces. Alas, yesterday was a very high wind day. It was So Cold and I almost got blown off my skis a few times. Still, quite beautiful.
Also a tiny church sitting alone near the trail.
Afterwards I drove to the next village up the valley San Candido and did the fastest coldest tourism ever. It was in the 20s with a ferocious wind. But I got two shots of local churches before my hands froze.
Today, after a surprise in the early morning (at 6:30 I blew the electrical circuits in the apartment so couldn’t have a leisurely breakfast), just got going early and had a fantastic day: clear blue skis, clean white snowy trails, and miracle of miracles, my energy was back after my bout of headcold. Yippee!! I drove up into the mountains on the way to Cortina D’Ampezzo, had a coffee, and skied skied skied, only stopping to take photos!!
This first shot is of a small restaurant/bar that served me great coffee. Had a great chat with the woman bartending.
The bartender also cooks. She had just made strudel and pies.
This next is the hotel where I began my day, having a great chat with Simone who raved about his visit to Florida and Key West. You can get good food and coffee and drinks every 5km here. So civilized. 
On the way back, I stopped at this graveyard for 1259 dead soldiers from WWI. That war was vicious here.
In town after skiing, I found the local church tower (looks like Russian Orthodox to me) and the solid local hotel Gasthaus.
Discovered some great stacks of wood. Hmm, I think everyone here uses wood for heating. Every house had the tidiest stacks of wood. Check these out.
The rest of the post is “just” a bunch of amazing scenery… Enjoy!
PS. There’s something wrong with WordPress that doesn’t allow comments. I can fix this from my laptop, but I don’t have Wi-Fi here. I’ll fix it tomorrow evening…
new test of comments