Morning tea in Austria

Monday 2nd July

A drive today to look at a couple of towns on the northern side of the Dolomites. We travelled about 50k north and found ourselves out of the mountains and in a beautiful green valley running east-west. We were still at altitude, about 1100m, but on either side of the valley we were looking at treed hills, rather than rock faces. Very different landscape.

On our way northwards we got this view of the mountain called Tre Cime di Lavaredo.

We were only 12k from the Austrian border so decided to go to Austria for morning tea! Very nice it was too. Their cakes were pretty good, and we had to try their speciality chocolates too.

We had to order our morning tea just by pointing at the cakes.
Neither of us reads or understands German. 

Lots of hang gliders around the town of Sillian.
Obviously a skiing town with chairlifts visible.

Turned back to Italy and we were again looking at the Dolomites rock mountains. We headed a little further west to a town called Brunico where we had lunch. We're pretty sure this town was still in Italy but it was so German. The lunch menu was German and I think the waitress was speaking German because it sure didn't sound like Italian.

One of the old entry gates to the town of Brunico.
Supposedly a medieval town centre but seemed to be
more recent than the 1500s.

These granny squares were a decorative seat back in the main street.

Time to head back towards Cortina. We 'tunnelled' our way back south most of the way along a river valley, and quite a good road. Up and over another mountain pass, Passo Valparola 2200m. Stopped at Tre Sassi fort which is now a WWI museum. The fort was owned by the Austrians and was a line of defence to defend the pass. It was pretty much destroyed during the war but has since been rebuilt as a museum.

Tre Sassi fort.

Down in this valley were quite a few war relics to be seen.

Over Passo Falzarego, 2105m, and one final stop for the day at a rock formation called Cinque Torri. We caught the chairlift to the top and the views were fabulous. It was late in the afternoon and a thunderstorm was brewing so quite a bit of cloud around, but there were still climbers climbing the rock faces.

Cinque Torri

It was late in the day and a storm was moving in
but the light shone on the lower part of the mountain.

These climbers were on their way down. Hope they made it before the storm.

These walkers are on their way down from another WWI museum.
We didn't visit this one as it was too late in the day. 

This was the ski jump used in the 1956 Winter Olympics
and is on the road getween our hotel and Cortina.
I think it might need a bit of work if they plan to use it for
the 2021 world ski championships.

As we came back down the chairlift it started to rain and there has been quite a heavy rain shower since we got back to the hotel. Now there is a lot of low cloud hiding some of the mountains.