They say these are the Alps, but they don't look like alps to me. In fact nothing I've ever seen compares to these massive plugs of limestone that burst like rockets out of soft green meadows as if they can't bear to be associated with anything so serene.
Perhaps because they're Italian. Calm one moment, explosive the next? I think we'll pass on that line of inquiry before we get into trouble. Besides, once upon a time they were Austrian. Even today you can explore the tunnels hewn out of solid rock where Italians and Austrians faced each other in the first world war. But that isn't why we're here. Ortesei, the Italian name - Saint Ulrich in German - is the town in the Italian Alps, the Dolomites, where we're beginning our walks.
In the late afternoon, when everyone is back from the mountains, Ortesei is an Italian tourist town times ten. But in the morning when sunlight rims the Dolomites with silver and hasn't yet descended upon the town, Ortesei is beautiful to behold. The yellow and blue and green hotels, windows spilling with flowers, are postcard perfect on the empty streets. Above them chalets rise in tiers while higher still, evergreen forests feather the bumps and humps of the foothills. That's the time. when breakfast buffets are fueling other walkers, for a leisurely stroll through town.
From 2,700 feet above Ortesei, the onion dome of the Church of Saint Antonio is hard to make out in the cluster of houses that the village has become. That's where we exit ski gondolas on a rolling meadow. Sassolungo, the highest peak in the range of the same name, looms over a vast expanse of velvet fields. "The colors are fantastic," says Ann. "The greens of the pastures, the blue of the sky, the silver grey of the mountains." Artistically arranged on the hills sit tiny wooden huts with sharply raked over-hanging roofs. Here, even more dramatically than below, the contrast between utter tranquility and high drama is striking. At this height the Dolomites literally jump out of the earth.
For a while we follow a gentle path through the fields, stopping to relax and marvel at the views. Then a country road takes us up into the forest. To Ann's colors can be added the gold of the manes of frisky young horses who join us briefly for a walk on the road before galloping wildly away. And the soft pink of the tongues of adolescent cows who come to lick our knees.
In 1982, two young American bankers, David Johnson and Jonathan Franzheim, fell in love with Italy. They bought a house 15 minutes from Lake Como and in 1988 created Tre Laghi - Three Lakes - a luxury walking tour company. Early on David and Jonathan decided that Tre Laghi would be about the senses: sight, taste and touch. So only the most beautiful areas, first in Italy, now including France, were chosen. And since they love good food, restaurants were collected with special care. Finally, when their guests lie down to sleep, it's in the best hotels on beds that soothe their weary muscles.
"I lost absolutely no weight at that lunch," Gordon says after we put away a venison carpaccio with mushroom salad, orzo soup, spezli with arugula and smoked ricotta and polenta with four local cheeses. It's true, this is no Slim Fast trip. There are ten of us on Tre Laghi's Dolomite walk plus our leaders, Dave Johnson and Donna, his wife. It is our first mountain lunch on the terrace of a restaurant that looks like a giant Swiss chalet. Though the country is Italy, the architecture and cuisine lean strongly to the Austrian. Dessert, for example, is a delicious concoction of shredded sweet pancakes doused with a compote of local berries - kaiserschmarn.
Fortunately none of us needs to diet. If we did there is always the ever popular Waterworld at the Hotel Adler, the 200 year old Grande Dame of Ortesei where we are staying. A multi-level imitation rock grotto, it contains a sauna, a "Turkish bath with essences," and an "Alpine lake with waterfall and whirlpool effects." Directions for their use suggest that guests cover themselves "out of respect for other people's moral standards." Except for the sauna and Turkish bath where "guests must enter without clothing." And moral standards?
If getting there is half the fun, the cable car to the Geisler Range does admirably. Hanging on a spider's thread, it shoots straight at a sheer stone wall. Just when we are saying our prayers, it sweeps upward skirting avalanches of fallen rock to deposit us where the world falls away at our feet. Far below, tiny red roofs peer up from the valley floor. Steep hills rise to hidden pastures where more houses perch precariously. Cliffs sweep even higher and still there are isolated farmhouses. Above it all tower once subterraneum crags of Dolomitic limestone. On the northern horizon are the glacial granite sharks' teeth of the snow-covered Austrian Alps.
A narrow stony path winds slowly down through strange gardens of huge white boulders casting shadows over little dells of purple and yellow wildflowers. By now we've learned that Dave and Donna, with diabolical cleverness, have arranged each day's walk to surpass the one before. This can be frustrating for photographers. The shot of a lifetime you took yesterday isn't as good as the one you see today. You might as well leave your camera in the hotel until the last day.
Not true, of course. Each day is different. Except for the general outline: Meet after breakfast at 9 in the lobby. Walk on relatively unchallenging paths with frequent stops until lunch at a mountain chalet where the
where the cuisine always surpasses expectations. After which another shorter walk - or not - for those preferring to return to town. Four PM at the hotel for the others, with free time until dinner at the best restaurants the region has to offer.
"The Alta Badia is the most isolated of the Dolomite regions," Dave says as we transfer from Ortesei to our second hotel. "It's a bastion of the Ladino culture and language, which originated with Roman soldiers who spoke a bastardized version of Latin." The current Ladino, zealously preserved in the Alta Badia, is the way it is spoken today.
"Until the ski boom the region was a sleepy backwater," Dave adds. But Corvaro, where we're staying, is a neat modern village of handsome stucco houses. As an introduction we stroll on paths that take us past fabulous backyard gardens to the Tyrolean-style church of Santa Assunta with its needle-sharp spire. After lunch we amble along a crystal-clear stream past a World's Cup downhill ski run before checking in at the Hotel Alara. In minutes we're all on our balconies oohing and aahing over the enormous Sassongher mountain that towers over the valley.
When the sun shines, Donna takes credit. When it rains she calls it a "Dave Day." Next morning is a Dave Day. But as Sally says, "This isn't a wimpy tour." So we put on long sleeves over t-shirts and rain gear over that and set off on one of the world's great paths, 3 feet wide, soft underfoot and gently ascending. On either side stand ramrod-straight larch and spruce trees dripping with moss and, let's face it, moisture.
Still, the light is like an artist's studio. The gentians are a deeper blue. Meadow grasses are more deeply green and glisten with
diamonds. True, we can't see the peaks that awed us from our balconies, but what we have is wonderful too. And oh the linzer tortes when we get to the top!
In Cortina d'Ampezzo there are no more linzer tortes or Ladino or German. Cortina, the third of our Dolomite regions, is and always has been Italian. But we have to earn our way there. Two vans bring us to the Falsarego Pass about 10 miles away where we are drawn by an irresistable force into a shop where we buy totally tasteless gifts. Then we escape into the hills on a single-file path that bobs and weaves around boulders and scrub pine until we're face to face with the mountain. Around a corner lie the ruins of a World War One Italian bunker, a group of buildings clinging to the ridge and carved into the rock. Behind the ruins, a perpendicular stone facade shoots straight up. Plastered against it at least a dozen climbers inch their way toward the point of a needle. Madness in the Italian Alps.
Exactl opposite, across the valley, five jagged spires, the Cinque Torre, are painted against the sky. The opening scenes of the Sylvester Stallone movie, "Cliffhanger" were filmed on those mountains which were then rechristened the Canadian Rockies. "I read somewhere," Donna says, "that Stallone is terrified of heights and never got more than 10 feet off the ground."
Lunch is at a refuge - "rifugio" - where simple dishes like spinach or mushroom ravioli have extraordinary flavors. As do the various ways of serving polenta, a word that sounds better than cornmeal mush. Lunch is our reward for the 5 miles we've walked. The views weren't bad either.
"Oh look what's at the end of the path," Janet says on our afternoon walk as she sees the sky open up. What we don't see at first is Cortina spread out in shadow at the bottom under a huge flat escarpment glowing in sunlight.
On the final day of the trip the air is crisp as toast. The colors of the flowers that fill each of Cortina's hundreds of balconies are brilliant to a point just short of garish. At the previous night's briefing, Dave has
promised us a sight to top all if the weather is good. A dangerously reckless promise given the fact that a starry night can often be followed by a rainy morn.
Not today. Cortina sits in its nest of Dolomites under an inverted bowl of blue. Donna leads us through the sleepy streets and at 10 AM we take the first of 3 cable cars that transport us to the Tofana di Mezzo, at 10,700 feet the second highest peak in the Dolomites.
From the second station there is only bone white rock all the way to the top. And chair lifts and ski runs on steep downhill fingers that wind between striated cliffs. And hikers sprinkled like pepper on mammoth cones of salt. In the third car we enter the snow zone. Clearly defined geological layers have gathered the flakes so that the crags are striped like convicts' pajamas. We step off on a snowy platform from which a sweep of mountains cups the distant green valley in bony hands.
At the platform a stairway climbs to a path carpeted with snow. Footprints lead us to the edge of a cliff which a thin rope has been clamped for psychological support. Necessary because two feet away it's 10,000 feet straight down. A slight exaggeration perhaps, but it
makes the point. Up we go, clinging to the wall until whoever planted the support ran out of clothesline. Though scary to look at, the way is safe and soon we're at the end, gleefully taking photos of each other and the unbelievable views. It's the most thrilling, exhilarating moment of the trip.
Too soon it's time to disband our surprisingly cohesive little group. Surprising because as individuals we couldn't be more different. Yet everybody genuinely liked everybody. That night at the farewell banquet Donna tells about being on vacation with Dave after a season's walks had ended. Sometime before dawn she was awakened by the sound of their hotel room door opening and closing. "When I realized Dave was gone, I got up to look for him," she says. "Lo and behold, I found him sleepwalking in the lobby dressed in his boxer shorts. I grabbed his arm and led him back to bed, sat him down and said, 'Dave, what are you doing?'" With his eyes wide open, Dave answered, "I'm leading the group," and he lay down and went back to sleep.
Secure in the knowledge that our leader really cares, we return to our rooms and do likewise.
TRE LAGHI LUXURY WALKING TOUR SPECIALISTS, (800 293-1117, www.trelaghi.com) offers walking tours in Tuscany, the Cinque Terre, the Swiss/Italian Lake District, the Piedmont, the Dolomites and in Provence, France. The emphasis is on flexibility, small group size, a gentle pace, fascinating itineraries, fine food and accommodations. Two guides lead each trip.
HOW TO GET THERE: Delta Airlines (800 241-4141, www.delta.com) flies non-stop to Venice and Milan from which trains are available to Bolzano. Tre Laghi provides transportation from Bolzano to Ortesei where the walks begin.
GETTING AROUND IF YOU EXTEND YOUR TRIP:
BY AIR: The SAS Visit Europe Pass consists of 1 to 8 coupons for travel between Scandinavia and the rest of Europe and Great Britain providing the fastest means of travel between countries. Call SAS, 800 221-2350, www.scandinavian.net. Inter European travel on their Star Alliance partners can also be booked through SAS.
BY TRAIN: The Italy Rail Card and the 17 country Eurailpass allow you to avoid busy ticket counters. High speed trains cut down travel time while local trains provide access to smaller towns. For information, purchase, schedules and fares contact Rail Europe at 888 382-RAIL (7245). 800 361-7245 in Canada. Website www.raileurope.com.
BY CAR: Auto Europe, (800 223-5555, www.autoeurope.com) provides cars at the guaranteed lowest price with no cancellation penalty throughout Europe. Especially helpful is their 24 hour toll free telephone number to the American office should assistance be necessary.
ACCOMMODATIONS AND DINING are supplied by Tre Laghi.
WHAT TO WEAR: Tre Laghi recommends layering light clothes under warmer. I wore convertible pants by Ex Officio, (800 644-7303, www.exofficio.com). When the weather warmed up the legs zipped off. Highly recommended. Their lightweight rain jacket and pants were also indispensable. Bring a weater, sun screen and sun glasses, a cap or hat with brim, camera, small day pack. Collapsible walking sticks can be helpful.
