Dolomites Day 1

Dolomites 2005

A personal diary ....

Day 1 .. Travel to Bergamo
Day 2 .. Travel to Rifugio Vajolet
Day 3 .. Vajolet to Rifugio Alpe di Tires .. Kesselkogel
Day 4 .. Tires to Rifugio Passo Sella .. Sasso Piatto
Day 5 .. Around the Passo Sella .. Col Rodella
Day 6 .. Passo Sella to Rifugio Castiglioni .. Sasso del Cappello
Day 7 .. Castiglioni to Rifugio Contrin .. Passo Ombretta
Day 8 .. Around the Contrin .. Cima Ombrettola
Day 9 .. Travel to Trento
Day 10 .. Travel to Bergamo
Day 11 .. Travel home

I picked up my passengers (Gordon, Andy and Diane) and then headed down to Prestwick Airport. The timing of the trip was good and we met up with the other 2 cars in the short term car park. After dropping off the passengers, the drivers followed me, to park at my sister’s house outside Loans. (A lot cheaper than the long term car parks!) The booked taxi duly arrived and took the drivers back to the airport where we again met up with the others already in the book-in queue. The team consisted of Bob, Andy, Gordon, Diane, Ian, Iris, Allan, James, Willie and Jim.

We eventually got booked in (we managed to get the slow queue) and then headed off to get something to eat for lunch. We kept an eye on the screens and noticed that the incoming flight was early, so headed through to the departure. Next thing we knew was the “Final Call” – can’t say we heard any of the others, but we all headed off to get on the plane.

We were quite lucky that several of us got seated close together. The flight wasn’t bad – a couple of drinks and a snack on the way and before long we were landing - about 20 minutes early. The baggage reclaim was pretty quick and we were out of the arrivals area before our transport arrived. However we soon saw a “Noris” minibus arrive and introduced ourselves. We got loaded up and it took about 30 minutes to get to the hostel.

There wasn’t much of a problem to get booked into the hostel. We had to pay €15 to register hostel membership, otherwise everything else was accounted for. We had 2 rooms for 2 and 1 for 6. All had en suite but the 2-bed rooms shared a shower. Ian and I could walk through to Iris and Diane’s room – interesting arrangement!

We checked things out and could get breakfast from 7.30 – also we could leave our “left luggage” free of charge. After getting settled in we walked down to get the number 6 bus into town. I wanted to get the train tickets that night rather than waiting till the morning. We also checked out the bus timetable for the following morning.

It was a bit more than the 200m advertised from the bus stop in town to the train station. However, getting the pre-booked train tickets printed turned out to be a simple job. Having got them, we then went looking for somewhere to eat.

It seemed disturbingly quiet with not a lot of places open, even though it was only 9.15 pm. After a while, Gordon fortunately spotted some people going into a likely place and we all headed for it. The Caffe Falcone turned out to be just what we needed. They could serve us beer and snacks and also a variety of pannini. 10 beers - si! That did us just fine. Then came the snacks – crisps, peanuts & olives – then more crisps, peanuts and even bigger olives!

The pannini was delicious and we had 10 more beers. More crisps, nuts and olives were also supplied. I paid for the meal with my credit card so that it would come out of the account, but we put together a very good tip as the service had been great. We said our goodbyes and then walked back to the hostel.

Apart from Allan falling over some street furniture, we all got back safely. Once back at the hostel, some headed for bed while a few of us had a seat outside and a chat before heading to bed.

Please note: Some areas of the Dolomites are predominantly German-speaking, although in Italy .. and others, of course, are predominantly Italian-speaking. For consistency, the hut names in this personal diary are noted in Italian .. Rifugi!