The Dolomites

I've been trying to write this blog for days now, but couldn't quite figure out how to describe the beauty of the Dolomites. John said it was like Yosemite but better, greener and with larger rock outcroppings. Not having been to Yosemite, I can't really compare, but I'll take his word for it (despite it being semi-sacrilege to say anything might be better than Yosemite!). Basically, I thought it was like the Alps, but with really neat rock formations added in, usually on top of the green mountain you were looking at.

First we drove north from Venice. The landscape on either side became higher and higher (when the road wasn't going through tunnels) until finally you were driving in a tight, steep valley with lush trees everywhere. We then took a left at a town called Cortina, and wound up the road, over a ridge, down into the next valley, up onto the next ridge, etc.... Not surprisingly, this area still speaks a strange language, Ludin, which comes from old Roman. I'm not surprised, because before those tunnels? It would have taken days to get into or out of any of those towns. The area was probably incredibly isolated.

But mostly everyone speaks German. That's because this area, known as South Tyrol, was part of Austria until World War I when the Allies told Italy they could have this area if they joined in and helped. When WWII came along, despite annexing Austria, Hitler allowed Mussolini to keep South Tyrol as long as he stayed on Hitler's side. Mussolini then encouraged as many Italians as he could to move into the area (he knew how precarious their claim was...). These days South Tyrol is still part of Italy, but it's allowed self governance and keeps its own taxes (it's one of the wealthiest areas in Italy). I'm sure that's how they pacified the 70% German-speaking population.

We hiked for a couple days (Italian style, where you walk a bit, stop for a hot chocolate, walk a bit more, stop for lunch...). On the way home we went west first, and came down the Bolzano valley. That was also an amazing drive. It felt like we were driving through the Grand Canyon after continuous rain for 50 years, with steep canyon sides covered in trees surrounding a lush valley. It's really surprising the Dolomites aren't on more people's lists of thing to see in Italy. We'd like to go back and try skiing there.