Seceda

Italy

By Yes Mom I'm Alive

Honeymoon Part 4

If you're just joining us, let's recap: We started our honeymoon in Zermatt, Switzerland, where it was hot, expensive, and beautiful. We then hopped over to Italy and hiked along the Alta Via 1 for five days, followed by an overnight stay at Tre Cime di Lavaredo.

As if we were not already spoiled enough, we capped off our honeymoon with a few days in the enchanting Val Gardena area of the Italian Dolomites.

This trip took place in July 2019, prior to COVID-19 travel restrictions.

VAL GARDENA

By car it takes 1.5 hours to get from Cortina to Val Gardena. By bus, it takes 6. Huh?

There was no way around this logistical hurdle – trust me, I tried – so we threw money at the problem and hired a private car to take us to Val Gardena. Our driver, a friendly Cortina native named Annarita, dropped us off at the Col Raiser Station in Ortisei, and a short gondola ride later we were back in the mountains.

RIFUGIO FERMEDA

It seems we saved the best rifugio for last – this one had a hot tub. After two weeks of hiking and schlepping a backpack around Europe, a long soak with beautiful views was true bliss.

SUNRISE AT SECEDA

If you visit Seceda at a reasonable hour, you can take a cable car all the way to the top. If you want to be there for sunrise, however, you got to hoof it up. So at the ungodly hour of 4 a.m., we started the 1200' hike to the top of Seceda.

THE FERMEDA TOWERS

The top of Seceda looks as if – and this very well may be exactly what happened – the Earth cracked open and lifted steeply into the air.

SECEDA CIRCUIT

When the sun reached well above the horizon we continued the circuit via Trail 2B. The trail took us the long way around and down the valley, eventually dropping us back to our rifugio (and breakfast).

Twin Spires of Pieralongia

Along the way we breezed past the so-called Twin Spires of Pieralongia, two tall boulders that stood erratic and erect from the ground. A recently installed fence kept us on the main path, from which only one of the spires was visible.

COL RAISER

After breakfast we packed up and walked the short distance back to the cable car station. As we were staying the night in the small town at the bottom of the gondola, we felt no rush to leave the mountains. At the station's cafe we found two empty lounge chairs overlooking the valley and took a long nap in the sun.

When we woke we downed some cappuccinos and rode the cable car down to Ortisei.

ORTISEI

For our last night in the Dolomites we stayed at the posh Chalet Hotel Hartmann. We had every intention to walk back to town to get dinner, but the hotel spoiled us and our appetites with a generous happy hour of cheeses, salamis, breads, and baked treats.

In the evening the hotel left the bar open for guests to pour their own drinks. We spent our final evening of our honeymoon sitting on the portico, enjoying one too many heavily poured aperol spritzes.

VENICE

We were meant to stay in Venice for one night before catching our flight back home the next morning. When my phone connected to the wifi at our hotel, however, we learned our flight was cancelled. I spent most of the afternoon on hold with Delta trying to get us a flight back home within the next few days. It was not exactly how we pictured spending the day in one of the most romantic cities in the world!

After a few aggravating hours with customer service, we secured an alternate flight home. We broke free from the hotel for a walk around the canals of Venice.

WHEN IN ITALY

When we were planning our visit to Venice, we put only one attraction on our wishlist. It wasn't St. Mark's Square, the Rialto Bridge, or a gondola ride along the canals.

It was pizza.

As the cuisine in the Dolomites is more traditionally Austrian than Italian, Venice was our first and only chance to have real Italian pizza. We ordered two.