Different seasons, different times

Yesterdays Via Ferrata doesn’t today look as bad, so we are going to stretch ourselves a bit more with the next ones.

Come late September, Dora is up for sale.     If you or anyone you know is looking for a reasonably priced motorhome then please check out the following link; https://www.2wanderers.com/dora-for-sale/ or if you have any questions email us at; info@2wanderers.com Thanks

This time we are going to do a two-days route in the Brenta Dolomites. These mountains are accessible from a town called Madonna di Campligio. From here, we will take a funicular to the top of the mountains, do two Via Ferratas on the first day, stay over in one of the refuges, do another one the next morning and return to Madonna di Campligio in the afternoon. And then probably collapse .

The Brenta Dolomites are already familiar to us. We came here to ski in January 2012. I have rescued some of those photos;

 

Susana and Gary, Folgarida, Madonna di Campligio, January 2012

We skied on these mountains for a week. The weather was fantastic.

It was so clear and clean all week. The light was so bright.

This place is incredibly popular but it didn’t feel as crowded as some of the tiny places we’ve been, namely Austria

because it is so big,

the infrastructure was amazing; gondolas and chair lifts connected many different valleys. You could never get bored of skiing in the same place all day.

You could ski all day from one end of the resort to the other, never repeating the same slope. GDR

It was just amazing

There is me, such a style, eh?

Gary took a video with the camera clutched precariously. Try to spot me when he passed me.

 

 

We are not very good skiers, we only started five years ago. During the first three years, we used to hire a ski instructor for a couple of hours a day.

It was him who told us about the Via Ferratas.

We think this is part of the Brenta where we will be going tomorrow. GDR

because we were so fascinated about the mountains range,

the scale of place,

the beauty of the mountains

We just wanted to go up there and climb them.

So when we heard about these Via Ferratas our eyes opened up . Something new! Something challenging! We promised ourselves to come back in Summer and give it a go.

At least it looks like the weather is turning, perhaps we will be in for a few nice days.

So we leave our layby near the vineyard and pass once again through Riva, leaving Lake Garda finally behind us, although it has given us a lot of fun with its ladders and yesterdays pretty tough grade 4 .

These cyclist are crazy around here, spending all day crawling up a steep mountain road only then to whizz down the other side, no crazier than ferratists I suppose. They can be really difficult to overtake though on these narrow mountain roads.

Dora climbs up out of the valley, we are  quite excited to see Madonna di Campligio.

The journey today should only be a couple of hours, the mountains get more dramatic as we get near Brenta.

It is going to be hard for us to recognise this place.

It is a different season, and it has been so long ago.

We should look at those photos when we come back to Dora.

We arrive at Madonna di Campligio at 16.00 with a big list of things to look for; where to park Dora for a couple of days (that will cost us a kidney), time and prices for the funicular, time and prices for buses, the weather…

Madonna di Campligio doesn’t ring any bells with us at all, perhaps we never really visited it. Our hotel was literally on the ski slope and had a swimming pool, sauna, good food and most importantly wine, so there was no real need to leave except for the skiing, and it looks like we didn’t. The town is one of those typical mountain tourist hells. Now we love our mountain shops, and there are precious few of them in the UK so we end up buying all of our stuff online, but it would be nice to have a few more in the UK, but not with these overinflated prices. It is amazing that they get away with it. It just goes to show, people are very unaware of prices when on holiday and are easily parted with their cash. GDR

After an hour driving around the town, we have found a parking spot relatively close to the centre, free for the first hour.

We find all information we need about the trek and transportation in the tourist information centre and a local shop sells us a map of the Brenta. One thing we are not happy about; the weather. Rain and storms are coming up, although not until late afternoon. So we just need to make sure we finish the Via Ferratas before then.

So much for the change in the Italian weather, which from our experience, is worse than the UK. GDR

Parking Dora for two days is also available by the funicular, quite convenient but also quite expensive.

The parking attendant is getting quite used to seeing Dora around town, he was down by the town centre when we were looking for places, and now he is up here, boy does he move quick. He is getting quite frustrated with us, as although we ask a lot of questions just enough for one of us to pop in to the funicular and find out the costs and the times of departure and return, we never quite get around to giving him some cash. It serves him right really, they only have a parking day rate, if they had an hour we would be happy to pay him. GDR

In fact, we have calculated that the whole trek, including accommodation and food will cost €200. Is it worth it? I think it is, simply because we are liking the sport so much, it is a classic Via Ferrata area and we are here, who knows when we’ll be able to come back.

So we now look for a place to stay tonight. It will be outside town, preferably somewhere quiet and relatively close to the funicular so we don’t have to drive long tomorrow. A small layby a couple of kilometres down the road from the funicular will do us fine for the night.

SM