Difficult decision today to cancel the Schlueterhuette and not continue to the Puezhuette. The forecast was for lots of rain, massive thunderstorms all over the Alps, possibly lasting a week. It was supposed to start raining around 1:00pm. There were a few drops, sometimes strong winds telling a story that was to come.
Couldn’t believe how many day visitors were coming up the hill from the parking lot 3km away.
I did manage to find the green barrier where shortly afterwards I had officially covered half of the way to Venice. Pretty unspectacular, not even a sign there.
From there I mostly walked on paved roads, around 11km. My feet were not happy that day although the beginning was ok. I stopped at a pull out with a bench and decided I was going to look for a place to put wait the rain. And it needed to have a sauna, what else was I going to do? I lucked out and found a deal in La Villa which turned out to be wonderful and also the right direction somewhat if I wanted to catch up with my hiking route.
Met 4 Italians there, 2 of them were looking for mushrooms, not very successful at all. Told one of the ladies about all the mushrooms I had found coming up from Pfunders (from the North). She just stared at me, probably not understanding a word. Language barriers! I will so learn to speak Italian for my next trip!
And down and down it went, most of the day. Crazy clouds all day but it never started raining.
Came through Antermoia and headed for St. Martin di Badia. Had a small break from the paved road coming through a tiny place, Bad Valdander, with a healing source for rheumatism, first mentioned in 1820 when a farmer built a guesthouse and a bathhouse. The source comes out of a small area at about 1630m elevation. There is a beautiful little chapel and the magic of the source seems mostly forgotten today. There was also a little fountain and I filled my water bottle with it. It has a salty and a little bitter taste to it.
After the next little steep hill I realized I could have stayed in the mountains longer and come down from the Wuerzjoch to that very spot. I would have missed the magic source though.
?
Getting closer to St. Martino/St. Martin the old castle came into view, the Ciastel de Tor. Today it houses the Ladin Museum.
And then I realized I couldn’t walk any further as it was a very narrow, very busy road, through tunnels and all. Not meant for hikers the least bit. So I took the bus to La Villa.
A beautiful garden across from the bus stop.
Could have caught the earlier one as the visitor centre gave me the wrong time, or maybe I was just confused. Ended up at a private derby fish pond. Didn’t sound very fair to me.
And saw some other animals today, hardly any cows at all.
Made it to La Villa and the La Ciasota B&B all dry.
After checking in headed for dinner. Soon realized La Villa is completely in Italian hands. There seem to be hardly any cars from other countries and at the amazing restaurant only one of the servers spoke German. The lovely bartender lady couldn’t speak German or English. So sign language it was!
But I did have tagliatelle con porcini! Unfortunately my phone had to charge and I couldn’t prove it with a picture but it was absolutely divine.
My room at La Ciasota was lovely. The whole place is all newly renovated and so beautifully designed, spotless clean, lovely hosts, amazing breakfast, and just what I needed to wait out at least some of the rain!
After getting back to my room the rain and thunderstorm started. Lucky again.
Sende Liebe, du bist das Beste. Wie immer tolle Fotos zum Mitfühlen. 🙏🏻❤️
Thanks for sharing