[[Pictures: 1. Robert and I in the field where we stopped to eat, 2. an example of the uphill trail we climbed (this particular one was directly after lunch), 3. the very narrow, very rocky, very scary path that eventually just plain ended, 4. one of many water troughs (we decided they were originally meant for horses back in the day), & 5. a view of Montagna Serva from a field along the trail]]
Yesterday Robert and I decided to go to the Dolomites and arbitrarily picked Belluno out of the travel book since it was the closest town by train. We caught an early train and quickly got yelled at by the train ticket collector for some reason that I'm still unsure of (she only spoke Italian...), but we didn't get kicked off, which is fortunate. We got into Belluno around 10 am and quickly got lost trying to find the tourist office (we ended up back at the train station). Since we ate our lunches on the train at 9am, we stopped at a little bakery to buy food for lunch. When we finally got to the tourist office, the lady told us we should just walk down around the river since it'd take at least an hour by bus to get anyplace pretty. Well, we couldn't find the river side path that the woman described, so we marched back into the office and demanded a bus. She told us Bolzano was only 10 minutes away (why she neglected to tell us this earlier is beyond me) and sent us towards the bus stop.
The bus literally dropped us off on the side of the street in Bolzano and we found one of the two walking trails the tourist office woman described. And we walked. For about 3 hours uphill (Robert estimated it was about 2 or 3 miles). I know...not exactly Jenny-style...I can imagine the shock/disbelief this is causing! We stopped for lunch in a field and kind of got that "we're the only people on the face of the earth" impression since it was so quiet. Until the walk back down, we didn't see a single person, which was really strange compared to the tourist clogged calle of Venice. After hiking as far as possible (at least as far as I could possibly go), we walked back down and caught the bus back into Belluno.
In Belluno we walked around a few shops (I nearly accidentally bought a $400 pair of boots) and found a pasta shop where you could buy cool pasta (made with things like lemon, cocoa, or pepperoncino) that they made on site. Then we got gelato (Robert owed me...we made a bet...he lost), hung out in the park in the center of town, and headed back to catch our train home.
Today I pretty much can't move on account of the intense hiking, but it was totally worth it for the chance to see some green after spending so much time in Venice!
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