17 Sept 2007 - Italy Day 3

Yes, that is snow. Today was our travel day. We planned to drive further north and then head across a pass into Austria but because the weather looked like a white out was going to happen, we decided to drive east to the Northern Italian Dolomites. As we started up the pass, the weather continued to deteriorate until there was a whiteout at the top of the pass. So we pulled into another Rifugio to wait out the weather and have lunch. It was really nice sitting inside have a warm meal and watching it snow.


The drive up to the pass was wonderful and clear. We would cross over a pass and then down the other side to a valley and then back up to another pass and then another valley. In Summit County the forest are dead from beetle kill but here the forest are healthy and green. Almost no dead limbs on the floor of the forest. They cleaning them out, drag them down to the road side and stack them neatly.

Many years ago when I first visited Italy, I was amazed at the litter and trash all around. This time I am amazed by the lack of trash and litter. On our entire trip, we really did not see litter along side the roads. No plastic grocery bags floating across the road nor stuck in the fences.

After lunch we continued driving up and down S-curve passes and end up finding an complex that had a room with kitchen for 3 nights. We decided to stay this area just 11km south of Dobbiaco, Italy, which is the center of the Dolomiti di Sesto National Park.

Click here to view other photos of Day 3.