Dolomites 2018 #7 - Tre Cime (and Venice)

Two days left, time to hammer! A little bit of rain downtime in the previous two days was probably a good thing. The forecast didn't look great on Sunday but we just packed our rain jackets and figured if we get dumped on - oh well! Our via ferrata book described a route from Misurina to Tre Cime (Senterioa Bonacossa traverse) that seemed like more of a protected hike than a true climbing route, so we didn't bother bringing our ferrata kits. That ended up being the right call. It was a really interesting and beautiful hike. When we got to Rifugio Auronzo the weather was still great (and it seemed like the forecast had possible scared off some of the crowds) so we decided to hike the Tre Cime loop. It was simply a wonderful day, and to save our tired legs we took the bus back down to Misurina.

On the last morning of the trip we ate breakfast early and headed straight back to Tre Cime. We climbed one last fun via ferrata on a tower near Rifugio Lorenzetti (same place we stopped for the beer in the photo above on the previous afternoon). What a perfect cap to the trip! (or so we thought... we weren't done yet...)

 

On the drive down to Venice we stopped in Auronzo di Cadore and walked around the lake for a while. Again, the colors of these lakes!!!

And then the final finale. We were staying at a hotel near the Venice airport (and near a park so we had a place to run the next morning before our flight home). We had no real plans to actually go to Venice, but when we checked in at the hotel, the girl at the desk told us it was a 10 minute tram ride to the city and the tram picked up right down the street from our hotel. Too good to be true! So we quickly dropped off our bags and headed straight into Venice to wander around for a few hours. Such a neat and unique city - it would have been a shame to miss it. 

This was the perfect day to end a perfect trip!

We keep saying that the next time we go to Europe, we need to go somewhere other than the Dolomites. I have a scenario when we do the Mont Blanc circuit and Haute Route back to back. I'm also intrigued by the Bavarian Alps. But man, the Dolomites are just so hard to beat.