4 Days, 100,000 Steps And Almost A Thousand New Photos

By Sam @ Village Green Cafe.

4 days, 100,000 steps, almost a thousand new photos in my camera roll… I think that paints the picture for the kind of trip I had recently in the Dolomites. 

Now don’t get me wrong, I love the Peak District and I love hiking in the UK generally, even in spite of the usual grey overtones which accompany it. An early morning stomp up Crowden Clough to the top of Kinder Scout for a chilly sunrise is hard to beat… until you realise what the Italian Alps has to offer. 

We decided for the trip to ditch the comfort of hotels and instead hire a camper to give us more freedom to explore and sleep closer to where we had planned to hike each morning.

However, when I say ‘ditch the comfort’ it isn’t really an appropriate term when referring to our first campsite close to Alpe di Siusi.

Possibly the must luxurious camping experience I’ve ever had involved hot, pristine showers, a heated swimming pool and even a pizza vending machine!

As you can imagine this set us up perfectly for an early morning drive up onto the highest Alpine meadow in Europe, where at over 2000m above sea level, we watched the sun rise over the Sassolungo mountain range. Watching the light transform the landscape from a chilly grey field into a warm sea of autumnal orange grass and vibrant larch trees felt truly surreal!

Now comes the part which brings us slightly closer to home (or at least Village Green). Having rushed out to catch the rising of the sun, we decided it was now time for coffee!

A short wander along the road which snakes through Seiser Alm brought us to the most picturesque of alpine cafes - more commonly known as ‘rifugios’. Here I enjoyed one of the best cappuccinos I have had in a long time, which was a genuine surprise.

As something of a coffee nerd with very high standards for what I would deem a drinkable coffee, having freshly ground barista prepared coffee in such a remote location was a god send; they didn’t even burn the milk!

The second half of the day - yes we absolutely maximised every moment of daylight - took us to a cable car station near Ortisei where we would ascend to start our hike up to possibly the most famous ridgeline in Europe: Seceda. The cable car journey itself provided a hilarious 5 minutes for myself as it became evident that my friend, shall we say, wasn’t entirely at ease dangling above the rather rugged looking valley. Composure regained, we began the fairly short but rather steep climb up towards the summit. Now as I said, this is an extremely famous part of the Dolomites and the number of tourists certainly reflected such.

I must add however that overtaking almost everyone else on the trail does provide one with something of a fitness ego boost! The view at the top was mind blowing, a ridge so sharp you could probably pick your teeth with it, but we didn’t linger long as the crowds had congregated into a scene from Disneyland. 

I won’t bore you with all of the details of every step we took for the following two days, but the following day involved a birthday tiramisu at another fantastic rifugio overlooking Cinque Torri, which was pretty awesome!

Now, back to sunrises! Specifically chilly sunrises. We had decided one evening to camp in a somewhat less luxurious (but far more beautiful) location at the foot of Tre Cime di Lavaredo.

I think it’s safe to say that with a very basic hired bedding get up and temperatures dropping to -3°C, all notions of luxury were utterly dispelled. The phrase ‘woke up’ probably isn’t entirely accurate given the lack of sleep that night, but we rose before dawn to begin the short hike to watch the sunrise over Cadini di Misurina.

Here we reaped our reward for a night of freezing half to death!

The peace and quiet of solitude as the Alpen Glow lit up the jagged ridge in front of us was probably one of the most special moments of my life, I have never seen anything so beautiful. 

I think this is a good point to sum up our trip and I do not have enough superlatives to describe this place. We didn’t even scratch the surface of what the Dolomites has to offer and yet I think it is almost certainly the most mind blowing place I have ever visited. 

Anyway, all good things must come to an end. So back to Village Green I go, come and grab a flat white and I might lend you my phone to look at the 978 photos that haven’t made it into this blog!