Day 2: Venice to Cortina

Sleep is fantastic. Waking up rested with both mind and body on the same clock was fantastic. We ate a wide variety of foods at the hotel breakfast, which was by far better than any make your own waffle setup I've experienced in the last few years of road tripping. Slowly, with delicious coffee.

I wasn't looking forward to a complex, multi-step journey to retrieve my backpack from the airport, so we decided to take the Alilaguna water taxi directly to the airport from San Marco. Backpack and man-Fanny pack loaded, we hiked over to the dock and bought our tickets. With 30 mintues to waste before the 10:50 boat, we went on a hunt for pastries and lunch to go, which we found easy enough wandering through the alley ways.

While the boat ride was about an hour trip, the price was right and it was an easy and chill way to see more of Venice from the water, without being smashed together with strangers. The large boat made its way counter-clockwise around the island, stopping at Murano Island before heading to the airport. Depending on the direction of the boat, waves, wind, and other boat wakes, sometimes the salty water would come splashing through the windows, soaking those enjoying the open air... such as Sarah.

We traced our steps back through the airport to the lost baggage office, where we waited for 10 minutes for someone to show, and eventually I was led through a secret security checkpoint for staff and into a storage room filled with hundreds of bags, suitcases, and backpacks. Luckily my backpack was close to the entry door and easy to find.

Having burned quite a bit of time getting the bag straightened out, we opted to take a taxi from the airport to the Meastre train station in mainland Venice. Driving along in a super clean manual shift mini minivan (small!) I noticed that we turned onto the highway heading out to the island of Venice... holding my phone up again to the taxi driver and showing him where we needed to go, it was clear there's been some miscommunication or he'd just plain forgot. We finally made it to the train station, which is also a major bus station, and found some shade to relax in while waiting the 45 minutes till the Cortina Exopess arrived. The sun was hot and the air still here, leaving us quite excited to get onto the comfy, air conditioned bus at 2. Annoyingly, the bus' first stop after picking us up was the airport. Boo.

The bus wound it's way out of Venice and north towards the distant mountains, which were all shadows and dark rain clouds in the distance. Through many tunnels and up and up along a deep river valley the bus wound it's way, the roads getting so narrow in some of the higher mountain towns that only one car could pass around a tight turn at a time. It was beautfil, even with the low clouds and rain.

The end of the bus route found us in Cortina around 5pm, surrounded on both sides by the towering Dolomites, shrouded in clouds with the sun peaking through in spots, making the sky glow. I immediately knew that I preferred this over the water canals of Venice.

We trekked down the hill to the wrong hotel, and then to the right one, following along the main tourist boulevard, solely reserved for people, not cars. Hotel Regina Cortina would be out stay tonight and at the end of our mountain trek. The hotel is much newer than what we saw in Venice- you can tell this was designed and built as a hotel and has never not been one. Waiting at the desk was a packet from our trip planners, MONT Trekking, filled with our reservation documents, printed itinerary, and 4 very nice waterproof bags. What were that trying to tell us with those bags?! A good bit of rain was in the forecast for the next few days...

Our hotel.

View from hotel room deck.

Map!

We sprawled all over the room and began restructuring our bags for heading into the mountains. I busted out the map and refreshed myself on our general route through the Dolomites. Feeling good about everything, we headed across the street to a sport equipment rental shop and rented via-ferrata equipment and got some great recommendations from the worker there. Stashing the harnesses and helmets back in the hotel room we then set out to explore the main strip of town. Goal= snacks. Because I'd eaten most of mine already.

We stumbled upon a multi-level grocery/department store place that was like a classy mini version of Walmart. And snacks were found.

We then wandered around oooking for dinner. We encountered two problems... one is that most places don't open for dinner till 7 or 8, and second, they often fill immediately when they open. After some hangry-inducing laps we ended up squeezing into the last table at our hotel's restaurant, which was fancier than I anticipated but still tasty if not overly filling.

Tired from the day we headed back to our hotel to finish packing and preparing.

Tomorrow... into the clouds.