FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX: Two Lakes & Three Peaks

Lago di Braies

Today was the beginning of the hiking for Team Dolomites and what better way to start than to tackle the Tre Cime di Lavaredo. First up though, we had to take our obligatory photo at the instagram popular Lago di Braies. It was a quick stop as we were advised that there was always a line to enter the Tre Cime trailhead at Rifugio Auronzo. We soon understood why Walter was trying to get us there as soon as possible. Even with our 0700 start, we waited in line for around 40 minutes before we were able to enter the parking area and where Walter could drop us off. He continued onto our next hotel with our luggage.

Armed with Manuela's map and instructions, we set off on the 10km loop trail. It was like an ant trail...which did thin out as you went along. The hike was hard on the lungs and on the legs. The views though were spectacular. Our cameras just could not capture what we saw with our eyes. We stopped at Rifugio Locatelli, the second of the three rifugios (not counting the starting Rifugio Auronzo) on the trail for lunch. A word of warning, they don't have wifi and they don't accept credit cards. We scraped together 61 euros between us and our lunch came to a total of 60.60 euros. Talk about cutting it fine...We did calculate it several times prior to ordering!

Walter dropped us off at the carpark of Rifugio Auronzo

Said Rifugio. Manuela's instructions were NOT to eat here

And so we followed trail of humans curving around the mountain side

Occasionally steep sides

The second Rifugio in sight!

Stunning scenery

Tre Cime di Lavaredo

View of the peaks on the way to Rifugio Locatelli

Our very calculated lunch!

Fried "pancakes" with cranberry sauce

Please Sir, this is all the money that we have

The kids got that instagram shot

Didn't think it was possible but yes we were a little confused with where to go

Back on track

Sigh...lots of downs means lots of ups

The last Rifugio on route

On the home stretch

Happy cows to greet us near the end!

We were definitely glad that we made it to the end! We had a different driver pick us up. He took us to our second instragram lake, Lago di Misurina, again for a quick photo before driving us to our next family run hotel, Hotel Columbia, which was a very pretty hotel in Cortina d'Ampezzo. Our bags were already there and all we had to do was check in. Dinner was a quick pizza before we repacked for more hiking tomorrow!