Majestic mountains

Sunday 1st July

Took a drive into Cortina today to first do the washing, then visit tourist information and have lunch. Seems we struck town on market day though it may also have been some sort of festival as things were still rocking late this afternoon.

After wandering the market and buying cherries (its been a couple of weeks since the last lot) we found a restaurant for lunch. This town seems to be more expensive than some of the other smaller towns in the area; in fact our hotel is one of the dearest on our trip so far.

Market day though it might have also been a festival of some sort.
It seemed to have quite a social feel to it - lots of people at the food and beer tent.

Plenty of German influences this far north.
Plenty of shops to buy your lederhosen and tyrolean hat.
German food on the menus and a lot of German signs.

Done the market shopping and had lunch - time to go home.

 A short drive this afternoon to a lake about 15k away. All along the drive there, again up and over a mountain pass, there were lots of cars parked alongside the road. They seemed to be parked in the middle of nowhere - were all these people out hiking? We just couldn't believe how busy it was. Where do all the people come from? They can't all be holidaying. I thought this area would be a less densely populated part of Italy, and less tourists and traffic. Obviously not!

So many different ways to capture these mountains
- ever changing with the light.

Lake Misurina at about 1300m.
Hundreds of cars and lots of tourist buses. 

Lago di Landro - this lake is also at around 1100m.
It was about 30deg and lots of people on the beach and in swimming.
I didn't feel the temperature of the water
but can't imagine it would be too warm.

I don't think I'll ever get tired of looking at these mountains.
Photo after photo. How does one choose?

In the late afternoon light you get a lot of pink then orange colour in the rock.

Tomorrow is Monday so we'll see if it is less busy then.

It's  a real United Nations in the hotel car park tonight - Czechoslovakia, Germany,  Austria,  Slovenia, Romania, Netherlands, Italy, France.