For me, this place is the mountains. Every single time I go.
I come from a long line of recreational skiers, I downhill ski raced in high school, I'm out skiing every weekend, and my family has gone out west practically every spring since I was 9. That's a fair amount of mountain experience for a girl from Michigan.
So when my friends and I saw our last full weekend together in Italy was a three-day weekend, we decided to have a girl's weekend. Everyone else either had parents in town or were going to Dublin for the weekend, so it was just my friends Morgan and Andrea and myself. We looked around at places for a little while - did we want to stay in a villa in Tuscany, wandering through the olive groves and vineyards daily? Did we want to sun-bathe on the beaches of the Amalfi Coast? Did we want to spend all our money shopping in Milan? In the end, we decided that going to the Dolomites to see the mountains, catch some fresh air, go hiking (not enough snow to ski unfortunately), sit by a fire at night drinking hot chocolate and wine (not together!), sounded like the perfect girl's weekend.
We made plans, booked a little apartment/cabin on Air BNB, and then after a lovely Thanksgiving dinner Thursday evening put on by our even lovelier program director, we departed early Friday morning for Fontanazzo in the Fassa Valley.
The trip was uneventful - a nice change from the usual traveling, where something inevitably goes wrong - and we arrived just after the sun set in picturesque little town of Fontanazzo.
The next morning, we got up early, made breakfast - we found peanut butter!! - and then got ready for a morning hike. We hopped on the trail that started right across the street from our cabin and ended up in Mazzin, but I couldn't tell you the path we took. Here are some pictures from our hike!
a little restaurant for hikers to grab a bite (it was closed since we were there in the off season, which is the month or two between summer and winter)
arriving in Mazzin
After a quick stop at our cabin, we made our way to some of the other towns in the area. We were starving by this point, but finding a place to eat lunch was proving difficult - everything was closed! Come to find out, since we were there in the off season, pretty much WAS closed and would open the following weekend. So basically, we were a week early.
We finally found a place to eat in Moena, a slightly bigger town in the di Fassa area. We ate a yummy lunch and then got hot chocolate - I got mint hot chocolate, which is my favorite!
After FINALLY eating, we walked around Moena for a while, peeking in all the shops and poking around food markets. In one place, we found grappa (an Italian liquor made from grape skins - potent!) with a viper in it. Yes, that's right, a snake. Apparently the venom gives it a special flavor and the alcohol makes the venom not poisonous. I was skeptical. None of us were tempted to try it as a jar of it clocked in at 3,500 euro. No thanks!
We wandered from town to town, struggling to find a place to eat dinner after our adventurous day. Finally we found a place with yummy pizza. Our night was pretty boring - we ate, and then promptly returned to our cabin and then went to bed shortly thereafter.
The next day, we took a trip to a bigger town in the area called Bolzano. They have a Christmas market there every holiday season, and we wanted to check it out.
IT WAS HUGE! There was so much stuff going on! All types of presents, live music, bars and food tents set up - it was amazing! We spent the afternoon wandering through the market, trying different foods and drinks that people would offer from their stands - it's amazing how friendly people are once you attempt to speak a little Italian!
When we got back that afternoon, we went on another quick hike. It was gloomy and foggy out, but the mountains looming in the distance gave us the impression of being very small. It was an almost eerie experience, walking in the woods in the fog, so we pretended to be in Lord of the Rings.
We bought groceries and cooked in that night and reminisced about our entire experience in Italy - this was our last weekend together, after all. We ate some apple strudel that we had bought from the market and drank some wine, and then went to bed early again because we had to catch a ride early that next morning.
All in all, a great weekend - and the best part was, that Monday afternoon, my mom flew into Florence!
