Friday, May 16

Breakfast in this fancy hotel lived up to its surroundings, as we prepared for an early departure. It’s a long drive to our destination in the Dolomites, but fortunately these Insight Vacations coaches are very comfortable, with widely-spaced seats, so there was quite a bit of dozing. Everything here is

very green, but we’ve been fortunate not to have any rain. We had a couple of breaks at

service centres, for coffee and lunch. At the lunch stop, a very large group of young people, one of them dressed as a dinosaur, were apparently celebrating an upcoming wedding. The layout of this place was confusing, and we were nearly late – let’s face it, were late – getting back to the bus, but someone who was actually lost was a bit behind us. We don’t want to be the couple who always makes life difficult.
Mid-afternoon brought us to a winery that produces high-end, genuine Prosecco.

We were shown around and told the story of the winery and of Prosecco. So many regulations! They export to the US but only to Quebec in Canada. But it’s so good and we had 2 glasses each, along with some small snacks. The drive into the Dolomites was another very challenging one for Enzo, but he’s extremely skilled and earned a round of applause when we pulled up at our hotel. This one is much plainer and very much more modern than last night’s and several of us commented it was more  to our taste. This is a gorgeous, rugged area, with steep mountains and a bit of snow at the heights. We saw the old ski jump from the 1956 Olympics. Everything is being worked on to prepare for the 2026 Olympics that will be held here in February. After a rest, we enjoyed dinner in the dining room and everyone was ready to settle for the night.

Link to all photos of the day. Click for larger and to save