Dream-Like Dolomites

I have a feeling that I’d rather not have you read this chapter. I have delayed posting it for months. Indeed, I could have included this section in my earlier chapter about northern Italy since the Dolomite mountains ARE part of Italy, and I explored them as a continuation of the northern Italian tour that I have described in a previous chapter. I have a problem with this current chapter because I ran out of color film after my first day there and was forced to shoot its magnificent landscape with black and white film. Before you claim that black and white photos are fine, let me point out that the Dolomites consist of ancient coral reefs that have been thrust upwards and then weathered into ragged shapes and hoodoos. Their color changes by the hour depending on what angle the sun is hitting them. They can appear red, pink, blue, purple, and even lime green. My photos can demonstrate none of that spectacle. Over the past ten years, my photography has been characterized by bright colors and digital enhancement. This chapter’s photos instead exhibit a previous style I’d rather forget. So why bother? Why post a type of photography I’ve abandoned and want to be forgotten? Well, of the 50+ countries I’ve visited, the Dolomite mountains remain my favorite spot in the world. I feel I must enshrine in writing the magic I experienced there, even if my pictures leave you wondering what all my excitement is about.

If you’d like to visit the Dolomites sometime, and I recommend that you do, find your way to Verona and hop on a train there that is heading north toward the Swiss Alps. The first set of high mountains you reach will be the Dolomites. You will have no trouble distinguishing the Dolomites from the Alps. The Alps are cold, icy, and grey, while the Dolomites are a weathered brown with high green pastures peeking out from between the peaks. You should get off the train in Bolzano, a medium-sized city in the middle of the dolomites.

During my first night in Bolzano, I stayed in a convent that allows backpackers to sleep there for one night. After that, everyone is expected to have the time to locate other lodgings if they plan to remain in the area longer. It’s a lifesaver if you blow into town without having made any reservations elsewhere. Be advised that the convent is no longer a secret, and the available rooms fill up early. After some looking, I found a room in an old hotel that sat on the public square.

Bolzano is a typical Italian small city. Emotions are unabashedly on display. Rules are made to be broken, and as a result, a smidge of chaos is always peeking around the next corner. The gelato is sweet and creamy, and restaurant food always delicious and healthy. It’s a nice place to spend a warm summer evening. This atmosphere changes dramatically if you board the gondola that rises from Bolzano to the smaller villages that dot the alpine meadows above the city. As soon as you step off the gondola, you realize you’ve entered a very different culture. Everyone on the street speaks German. Rules are meant to be obeyed, and as a result, everything seems neat and orderly. The restaurants serve knackwurst, bratwurst, scalloped potatoes, and boiled vegetables. The residents tend to keep to themselves and rarely pander to tourists, though they will take your money if you insist on buying something. This part of Italy was Austrian until the end of the first world war when Italy acquired this area. The Austrians never left. Instead, they moved up to higher ground and remain there today. I soon found a trail through the forest. At the beginning of the trail, I found a large white mansion with a picture window looking out on the valley below. Through the window, I saw thin, Teutonic-looking old women playing cards. It seemed like a nice way for someone to spend the last years of their lives.

I had only walked through the cool green forest for about 15 minutes when I thought I heard music drifting in and out of the pine needle freshened air. My imagination defeated my reason as I began to think that I would come upon a party of dwarfs dancing in the woods. Soon the sounds became louder. It wasn’t music I heard, but bells. “Jchang, Jchang” the bells thumped along. Then over a rise, I saw drovers herding their cattle from the high meadows to lower fields for the winter. I visited the Dolomites during the first week of September, but these cattlemen didn’t want their flock to be caught in one of the early snowstorms that sometimes occur here. I later saw cattle and horses being driven down the main highway that links these alpine villages. After walking for about three hours, I came out of the forest and onto the tree line. Above me, I could see a chair lift and the high meadows where the descending cows and horses spent their summer.

I wandered around above the tree line for about an hour before I decided to follow their lead and head back down before it got dark. On my way, I stopped at a small German restaurant where I had a beer ( I didn’t want to ruin my appetite for the more tasty Italian fare I could find below in the valley).

Rather than retrace my steps, I took a new route down from the high meadows and eventually came to a small clapped board building that served as a station-stop for a narrow-gauge steam train, where, according to the schedule posted on its wall, I had missed my last chance for it to haul me back to the gondola that I used that morning to reach this German flavored corner of Italy. No worries. It was an hour late, and chugged into the station just as I was prepared to begin a long walk back. The next day I arose early and climbed aboard the gondola again, looking forward to another interesting day in the piney fresh meadows above, never realizing where my overactive imagination might take me. At first, I followed the same trail that I had taken the day before, but after about a mile, I saw another trail that broke off to the side. I think I had previously missed it because it was much fainter than the main trail and arched off about where I had run into the first group of cows the previous day. The breeze was making a limb above me lightly groan. The trail became dark and deep, and I had miles to go before…well, you know the rest. I suddenly came to a clearing with a small log cabin hidden under some tall pines. It wasn’t made of gingerbread, but scalloped boards lined the cabin’s eaves that resembled those of a storybook gingerbread house. An old woman wearing a black cowl was closing the door as I entered the clearing. Her stooped figure couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, and her hands were shaking as she tried to lock the door. The trail I was on passed within a foot of the corner of the little porch she was on. As I passed, she saw me and jumped back while exhaling a loud “uuh!”. She turned, unlocked the door, and scrambled back inside. I can’t imagine why she was so frightened of me, but I suspect that those damned Hansel and Gretal kids have forever made us wanderers seem dangerous to a certain segment of the forest’s residents. Not 200 yards further along the trail, I found myself walking between two high moss-covered banks. On top of a boulder on the bank on my right stood a small deer that couldn’t have been bigger than your average Labrador Retriever, yet he possessed a full set of antlers. I looked up at the tiny stag, and he looked down at me. Neither of us seemed troubled by the other. After encountering a character from Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and Bambi’s father, I was ready for anything when the trail left the forested ravine and entered a meadow strewn with blue and yellow flowers that covered a broad field that gently rolled over toward the valley below. My imagination now inflamed. The field looked to me like the cover of the Julie Andrews “Sound of Music” record cover.

I breathed deeply of the fresh air and began to lope through the flowers when….I swear to god….music was coming from somewhere up ahead. I listened intently for the words of “Eidelweiss” but heard instead. “Happy traaiils to you until we meet again.” I climbed the knoll ahead of me, where I saw a coral containing a bunch of sleepy saddle horses, a western saloon, a barn, and a farmhouse restaurant. I had stumbled on a dude ranch in the German portion of northern Italy. What are the odds? Despite the music coming from hidden loudspeakers, the dude ranch possessed no customers. It was, in a manner of speaking, a ghost town. The only employee around was a young german shepherd lounging in the shade next to the coral. He looked bored. He slowly got up and walked over to me, and licked my hand. I scratched his ears. I had made a new friend. I continued on the trail with the dog peacefully ambling next to me. We explored various paths together for the next hour. Sometimes I would choose the route, and sometimes he would. Eventually, we came to a fork in the road. He wanted to go left and I right. As I turned left, he looked back at me and hopefully wagged his tail. I shook my head “no” and continued on my way. He, too, followed his separate path. I immediately began to miss my quiet companion. Further along the trail, I again heard music, but there was no mistaking what type of music was oompaahhing through the forest. Heavyset men wearing lederhosen and knee-high socks were creating the mood for a German-style festival being held outside a mountain tavern. Beer and white wine was served from wooden barrels, and wursts were bubbling on grills at the edge of a platform containing about a dozen picnic tables. I bought a beer and sat at one of the picnic tables while being studiously ignored by my loudly singing neighbors. I figured out why my canine companion didn’t want to travel this way. Still, at the end of the day, as I headed back to the gondola, I considered my experiences to have been extraordinary. I perceived Hansel and Gretal’s witch, Bambi’s father, Julie Andrews, and Rin Tin Tin all in one day, though only in my mind’s eye. I knew the next morning that I could never top the previous day in the meadows above Bolzano, so I took a bus to Alpi di Suisi which I had heard was a beautiful location. Wow! Alpi di Suisi was magnificent! I’ve posted a couple of photos above, but none can display the true beauty of the place. It is a huge bowl several miles wide that sits high atop the Dolomites. The bowl is surrounded by the crumbling remnants of coral reefs that change their colors as the day progresses.

                                A Road Near Suisi di Alpi Unfortunately, my photos can barely reflect the beauty of this place. I recommend you Google search Suisi di Alpi or look on Pinterest, where you can find many photos much more evocative than these. I know that during the pandemic, my Facebook feed often contained many spectacular photos of Suisi di Alpi and the Dolomites in general. Better yet, I recommend you travel there and see for yourself what this exceptional landscape has to offer. Perhaps we will run into each other since I would like to return here one last time in the future. Perhaps some late August when they are again bringing cattle and horses down from the high meadows.  I’m bringing my best digital camera next time. 🙂