Sunday June 28

We left Golden Hill at 9:30am and arrived at the Radisson Residences at about 10:30am with no navigation issues. The checkin person said they would put our room (ie. apartment) on a rush with housekeeping and it would be ready in about 1 hour.

We walked around the pedestrian area (our hotel is just on the edge of this area) visiting the tourist office, checking out restaurants and the Conad grocery store. 

We went back to the Radisson at noon and our room was ready - overall it was disappointing particularly for the price > $800 pn. In particular, it was not air-conditioned (we were gobsmacked) and the bar fridge was quite hopeless so it did not take much for us to realise that cooking was "off the table". We unpacked and returned to the grocery store to get breakfast stuff and, since we had decided to just do sambos for dinner, some cold cuts and bread. Rain set in around 2pm and lasted for about 2 hours. Since it was now late in the day the shelves at Conad were bare, particularly bread.

Anyway back at home we had happy hour and by this time realised the fridge could not cope. 

After our light dinner we did another walk around the village then headed home for an early night.

Monday June 29

At breakfast we realised that the fridge was probably as good as it would get - most things were now cool but far from cold.

We set out for the Telfour gondola/cable car where we planned to just walk from the top of the first gondola as it was pretty cloudy but by the time we got there (7 minute drive or 20 minute walk) it seemed a lot clearer so we bought return ticket to the very top (3100m) - the summit was amazing but it wasn't really clear enough to get great photos. We made our way down the 2 upper cable cars to the top of the gondola and stopped for light lunch. We had planned to walk back from here but the weather was closing in so we took the gondola back down and drove back to the hotel. Not very long afterwards a thunder storm, complete with hail, set in.

We went out for dinner.

Tuesday June 30

We did a walk starting in the village along an old railway track - one way was slightly downhill (which you did not even really notice) but the return the slight uphill became quite noticeable.

We had dinner at 5 Torri pizza place - cheap, cheerful and popular but not the greatest pizzas ever.

Wednesday July 1

The forecast predicted rain and storms but it started as a clear and sunny day (cool mornings but reaching 27C by 2pm). We drove to Cinque Torri (about 25 minutes up a winding mountain road) and took a chair lift where there were amazing views and many walking tracks. We took the most popular one to a rufugio (mountain hut) which was lovely - we elected not to continue to the next rufugio as the track looked very precarious. We returned to the top of the chairlift for a light lunch.

Back at home - we did some shopping as we had planned to have dinner at home. Good luck we did as a thunderstorm moved in around 4:30pm.

Thursday July 2

We drove up past 5 Tori to Passo Falzarego where we took a cable car to the summit of Piccolo Lagazuoi (2,762 m). There were amazing views and lots of WWI history including tunnels. We (ie Dieter) had decided to walk down, supposedly it should take 1.5 hours. The trail was not only extremely rocky and steep but poorly marked - in the end it took us 2.5 hours mainly because of me. At the bottom we stopped for a bite to eat then headed home.

We went out for dinner at Domo Eats a place we had discovered on our first day.

Friday July 3

We decided on an easier day after we changed our mind about hiking to a "great" mountain restaurant after reading some reviews none of which were favourable. Instead we did an 8k walk along another section of the trail on an abandoned railway line. 

The rest of day was quiet but we had dinner at the El Ponte, a pizzeria just 2 minutes from our hotel. To our surprise it was excellent even though we had pasta and not pizza.

Saturday July 4

Off to Langenfeld, Austria about 10k's from Solden. See next entry for the story.