Lake Misurnia & Tre Crime Lavaredo Loop (Cortina to Ortisei)

This morning looking outside at the Dolomites the weather didn't look as terrible as it was forecasted to be and I could see a considerable amount of blue sky. We still hadn't heard from out Airbnb host for tonight so we sent her a text message as well as messaging her cousin on Whatsapp before we went to breakfast (as she had asked us to do). I had woken up earlier due to the heat of the room despite having the door and the window ajar all night. It was the perfect temperature for getting all of our merinos washed and dried overnight though! Breakfast again was excellent and we had both fresh buns and cereal as well as bringing my handbag down from the room to sneak a couple of the bread rolls into my bag for lunch today. Once we returned from breakfast and were packing up our stuff we still hadn't heard from Lucia and we decided to contact Airbnb regarding this since we were unsure of the process which happens next if this accomodation falls through tonight, we would have to await their reply! The man at the reception brought the car around for me and we began loading up the food bags and left our main luggage at the hotel reception which we would pick up on our way through later. We left the hotel and I routed us to Lake Misurina which was 30 minutes away. We figured there would be fuel somewhere along the way but after 10 minutes of driving in a pass I did a quick search and the only stuff was back in Cortina. Pulling a U turn we decided to head back since we didn't want a repeat of what happened last time when the fuel ran low and we almost ended up pushing the car on the side of the autoroute. The car cost us €53 ($89 NZD) to fill and we worked out on the drive that the average amount we spend on fuel is between €55 - €60 ($93- $101 NZD) but don't worry when this trip is completed we plan to do a summary on what this trip cost us with the car including petrol, tolls and parking - the hidden costs of driving Europe really! Arriving in Lake Misurina I was a little disappointed with the view since the ones I had seen on Pinterest were absolutely to die for but this was really just a big yellow hotel in the middle of the mountains. Perhaps we just got a bit spoilt with our views yesterday and also the photos were of it in the snow with the lake frozen over in front of it. I had researched how we would get up to the Tre Crime track and heard that there was a bus you could take but I couldn't find details about it online and we though we could just find out when we got here. The other option was that we could drive up but it is a toll road and a paid carpark and would cost us €25 ($42 NZD) to do so. Lew really needed the bathroom before we headed up there and the public ones seemed to be bolted closed. This meant that we found an open cafe and whilst Lew shot to the bathroom he spotted out the back I purchased the cheapest item in the cabinet - a chocolate covered biscuit which to us meant we had access to their bathrooms. I asked the old man at the counter about the bus but he said that it is only in the summer and the only way up at this time of the year is by personal car. I guess that made the decision easy and were forking out the €25 on parking!

After jumping back in the car we drove the road up the mountains and soon enough came to a toll booth where you had to pay. People were parked up just outside of it and looked as though they were walking up from there but we didn't have any service to see how long it would take us. We asked the man at the toll booth and sounding very uninterested in answering our questions told us it would be two hours up and then 4 hours around the Tre Crime but I didn't really believe it would take that long since I heard the loop walk only took 3 hours. Still we decided we didn't have that much time since we had to drive 2 hours to Ortisei still and we handed over a credit card. The drive up was pretty spectacular as you inched higher and higher into the cloud cover which luckily wasn't too thick at this stage and we could see the entire basin down to Lake Misurina. There was a surprising amount of people up here doing the walk for this time of year and we drove around the three different parking lots looking for a park since most people had parked stupidly and blocked off multiple parks. We could see the walk below and it looked very easy so we were a little disappointed in the lack of a challenge for today and Lew exclaimed it was just out cool down from yesterdays excitement. It was 1140am when we set off and we didn't have much cell service nor had we heard back from Airbnb yet. The track dug into the edge of the cliff and was more of a gentle stroll up to the famous Tre Crime (three peaks) mountains which are located in the Three Peaks National Park and in 2009 were declared an UNESCO World Heritage Site. The names of the three mountains are Cima Ovest ( 2973 m, 9754 ft ), Cima Grande ( 2999 m, 9839 ft), and Cima Piccola ( 2857 m, 9373 ft ) and the track did say you can actually climb up and over them all! They stick out a lot with their jagged cliff faces and their sharp peaks and the white-grey layers of the rock are very different to anything I have seen before. They are a sedimentary rock that is similar to limestone but with the primary mineral being Dolomite - CaMg(CO3)2, they are known as dolostone or dolomite rock.

We gained a bit of elevation as we neared the edge of the mountains making me remove mostly all of my merino layers as we trekked upwards. Lew had decided there was too many people around to be flying his drone but as we were walking up we heard the familiar sound of a giant mosquito and looking up we saw a monster of a drone - the DJI Inspire Pro. The guy was easy to spot and we walked up there hoping to have a chat about whether he had any issues flying around this area but he didn't speak any English which flattened the conversation pretty quick. Whilst it is great flying close to the mountain what you really want is to be a bit further away so you can take in the real monstrosity of the Dolomites. A lot of people were walking this icy/snowy path down the other side of the mountain and we figured we could probably manage to loop the track around if we followed them despite not really knowing where we were going or how long it would take. We had been laughing at all the people doing this pathetically easy hike with their hiking poles but as we begun walking down this icy slope we understood why they had them now. We had no issues with our Adidas shoes though and made our way off track down into the valley where Lew took a timelapse of the clouds funnelling through the gaps of the Tre Crime and also got some drone footage. There seemed to be some people walking this way and there was a track visible so we continued onwards through the rocky outcrop until we came across a hut and met up with what was probably the actual track number "105" back to the carpark. I think we possibly took a shortcut through the middle of the basin but by this stage the cloud cover was increasing and we could no longer see the three peaks or the view into the basin of Lake Misurina. We had timed it right since it was 3pm and the temperature was steadily dropping. Our cell signl returned at this point and we had a message form Airbnb about them also trying to contact our host for tonight and if we received no contact from Lucia within 2 hours (I think the email was actually written at about 1145am) we were to let them know and they would cancel it and find us some place else. We quickly check all methods we had tried to contact the host by and still nothing so replied to Airbnb asking what we do next since we are beginning our drive to Ortisei shortly. Driving back down the pass we headed to Cortina where we would collect our bags and in hind sight our stuff probably would have been fine in the back of the car but it was easier not to take the risk and we had to drive in that direction anyways. On the way back we had multiple email conversations with Airbnb and as we were about an hour away from Ortisei driving through the Alta Badia ski field slopes more specifically those of Corvara we were told that we would have to find a new place, contact the hosts and then Airbnb would give us some compensation and also contact the host for us as well if necessary. We had to wait until we were over this pass that was making us drive switch backs with the ski slopes either side of the road which would be rather beautiful to ski. The slopes seemed to go forever and we constantly saw new lifts connecting them all. Once we reached the bottom again the cell service returned and Lew pulled over so we could check out out options. I had book marked a few places this morning in case we would have to do this and the Airbnb lady had also sent us 4 options to aid our search. We narrowed it down to one and booked the place and contacted the women explaining our situation. We now had to wait for her reply despite it being 5pm and dark with no place for us to sleep tonight! I felt a little ok knowing that worst case scenario we have the car and also sleeping bags but it would be a very cold rough night. We stayed in touch with Airbnb and they tried to ring the women (we don't have access to those sorts of contact details until the booking is confirmed) but had no luck reaching her. We decided to try and contact our second option just in case which was much further out of town but the place was gorgeous and still within budget. The Airbnb lady also tried to reach him with no answer. By this stage we had arrived in Ortisei and found some underground parking to leave the car in whilst we went to check out the town. We thought it would be similar to Cortina but infact it was even more deserted with about two restaurants open and two hotels. It was absolutely freezing and despite being rugged up with merinos, down jackets, hats and gloves we were still keen to get inside. We also thought we should know what hotels there are incase we get really stuck and walked into one of the two open ones. This one turned out to be a family hotel only and they were not interested in having us and then the the next one across the road looked very very fancy and we asked them what their cheapest room was. We had to pick out jaws up off the floor when the receptionist gave us a figure of  €700 ($1177 NZD) for two nights and we explained out budget was unfortunately only  €100 ($168 NZD) per night haha!!! She said we wouldn't find anything for that rate here as this is the only hotel open and suggested we drive to Bolzano the nearest big city 1 hour away. We walked out laughing and feeling very concerned about a back up option if Airbnb falls through since it was 6pm at night! We decided to find a place for dinner since we hadn't had much lunch and continuing to take my glove off to search my phone for accomodation was making them numb. With a choice of two restaurants it wasn't hard to pick the place called Pizzeria Cascade which looked a lot more warm and inviting. Since we were still dressed in our hiking clothes we got a few chuckles at Lews bare legs as we walked in to the place feeling as though we were very underdressed. Once seated we begun our search for places to stay and a quick Booking.com search earlier had come up with a couple of options as well. We had asked Airbnb when we give up on our two options with them and they agreed to pay for a hotel up to $200 USD ($290 NZD) for the two nights since we were very unlikely to find another Airbnb in the area. We ordered some gnocchi as a starter plus two pizzas and was also given the usual bread basket which we begun munching on. We both agreed on one of the places on Booking.com that had a kitchen and was still within the area but just 15 minutes drive back. We booked this place since there were becoming fewer options as it got later in the evening and messaged the place apologising for the late booking and explaining our situation. We felt a little more relaxed when we received an email back straight away with directions and that they would meet us when we arrived. We could now enjoy dinner a bit more and the gnocchi was very tasty and even though I asked for one portion they halved it and gave it to us separately in beautiful bowls. The pizza wasn't too bad either and when it came to paying for the bill we were delighted there was no cover charge and it ended up being our cheapest meal for awhile at €25.60 ($42 NZD). We walked pack to the parking structure in the cold dark night and paid the €3 ($5 NZD) for parking before loading our accommodation address into Google Maps and driving onwards. We were a little surprised as we begun climbing steadily up a hill and knew it wasn't going to be a place where we could walk into town from. We pulled up the driveway of the place Google maps told us only to look back on the Booking.com photos and decide that we were absolutely sitting in some random persons driveway and not the accomodation at all! Rerouting us we drove another 5 minutes up the hill and found the signs indicating the Apartments La Baita where we were staying. The women Malina came out to greet us and showed us into the apartment of which they clearly had a few. It had everything we needed aside from a washing machine and the bedroom smelled heavenly of freshly washed bed linen. You know those days you wash your sheets and hang them in the sun to dry and when you finally go to bed at night the smell just surrounds you - my favourite! Malina had pointed out some walks for us to do tomorrow but with the weather not looking amazing we will just take it as it comes. Perhaps we will have a day off watching movies and I guess I should do some study for this exam. Goodnight everyone and I am pleased to say that we are not sleeping rough in the car tonight!