A UVM blog Semester at Sea – Spring 2022

Third visit to Napoli and FINALLY had some great pizza. Un Posto al Sole (a place in the sun) in the Centro district. Short walk from the hotel. Two pies falling over the edges of 12″ plates, two LARGE beers, 20 euros. What a deal.

I am traveling by train 450 miles from Venice Mestre to Napoli Centrale. Averaging 90 miles an hour, (max I noticed was 160mph) comfortable seat. Lots of legroom. Vending machines. Free WiFi. Power outlets. No TSA. No fee for 2nd bag. Carry my bags on and off. I like trains. Wish we had them in the US. Oh, I know we have some, but they are so bad with very few exceptions. When I’m in charge, we will build railroads. The public will own the roads, private companies will provide rail service on these roads. 200mph service from NYC to Chicago to Denver to SF. Dallas to Denver to Chicago. 4 hours NYC to Chicago. WTF not?

Kathy and I checked out of Hotel ChristiAnia and caught the Dolomite Express bus to Cortina. Than a second Dolomites Express bus to the Venice Mestre Stazione. Venice Mestre is a mainland borough of Venice. We have booked tickets on a 10am train to Naples tomorrow. It’s a 5 hour train ride. About 450 miles. The central train station in Naples is less than a mile from out hotel there. We’ll be in Naples 3 nights before boarding the MV World Odyssey.

We met Filippo at 8:30. He had arranged a taxi to take us to Cortina about an hour over a pass. We came through there on or way up to La Villa a week ago. We arrived at a lift in Cortina. Crazy ski area parking lot action. Crazy million-kids-on-school-vacation-taking-ski-lessons lift line. We rode a chair up. A short ski to another chair climbing higher. A short ski. Another chair climbing higher. And a very steep run down. Filippo says Cortina is known for it’s steep pista. On to a gondola climbing a bigger mountain. At the top of the gondola we board a tram going higher. A short run to a chair going … higher. This char was interesting. It made a 90 degree turn halfway and continued up. This is where we skied the “Pista per Sciatori Esperti” pista. One of those trails where as you edge up to the edge you can NOT see ANYTHING below until you push yourself over the edge. OMG STEEP. We survived, stopped at a hut for a toilet and cappuccino. Fillippo had arranged a taxi to meet us back in the crazy parking lot. We found her and headed back up to the top of the pass separating Cortina from Alta Badia. There we rode another tram (large cable car) way way up to the top of another mountain. Here, we had a very nice lunch and enjoyed more fabulous views. We have been so lucky with the weather. So much sun and blue skies. From here we would ski all the way to La Villa. We did utilize a few more lifts. Most notable a “high capacity horizontal rope tow”. … A rope towed by two large strong horses pulling a couple of dozen skiers. Skied that final run down to the last lift up to the hotel. What great ski vacation. We recommend Dolomite Mountains ( https://www.dolomitemountains.com/en/home ) for arranging a Dolomites vacation, and we loved the ChristAnia hotel in La Villa ( https://www.christiania.it/en/ ).

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1. If we didn’t have a guide, we would not have completed the circuit. At a minimum we would have definitely gotten lost skiing through Val Gardena.
2. The trails are all wide and groomed, BUT… some are pretty steep. Only for advanced skiers I think.
3. It’s a workout. Of course everything is relative. But for this 67 year old, relatively fit guy, who has a little bit of a stomach issue (as in wtf did I eat today…) and perhaps a small cold, it was a FULL day of skiing.
4. The scenery is stunning. Exceptional. Of course we were supremely lucky and had excellent weather all our ski days. Lots of beautiful blue skies. The mountains looked like those 3d postcards.

Today we skied the Sella Ronda. It wasn’t what I expected. I had this quaint vision of a cone shaped mountain with a spiral ski trail winding it’s way top to bottom. What it rally is is a series of lifts and pistes which if taken in the right order lead one around a group of mountains, the Grupa Sella. So it’s a lot of chairlifts and gondolas, and a LOT of skiing. We met Filippo at 8:30 at out hotel and booted up. Then a short walk to the Piz La Ila gondola. Filippo recommended we tae the counter clockwise route, less walking and a few special stops. So through Corvara, Colfosco, Val Gardena, through the Passo Sella, and the Passo Pordoi, down into Arabba, over the Passo Compolongo, up the Piz La Villa, and finally down the Gran Risa piste. The last lift was a short chair up to the town level with the hotel. We got on that chair at 4:10. It stops running at 4:15. We did stop for cafe and strudel, and later for a late lunch (when Filippo says we are nearly there he is almost always lying).

We left our skis behind in Canazei for a bit and rode a cable car to the top of the neighboring mountain (which I can’t figure out the name of). Stunning views. Back down, skis on, continue. Fillippo says lunch in 5 minutes… (not even close). The Giro d’Italia bicycle race sometimes goes through this town. Looks like a good spot for our next bicycle adventure.

Email is choking on my photo download. I’ll have to add photos later…

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Yesterday was a quiet day of rest. We did take a long walk through this pretty village. Today, we set out to try to ski to the Val Gardena. We weren’t sure which lifts and pistes we needed to take, but there are a ton of “this way to..” signs. We followed signs to Corvara, and from there, signs for Sella Ronda. The Sella Rhonda is one of the the more famous circuits you can ski. This one circles the Sella Groupa, a group of mountains. There are lots of Sella Rhonda signs. Orange for those going around clockwise, green for those going around the other way. We followed the green signs as far as Val Gardena. I was being a wimp and suggested we turn back at that point. We did take a side trip in Colfosco. Back up to the Edelweiss Rifugio for a small lunch and a black piste. Then we found our way back to the Gran Risa piste which leads us back to hotel ChristiAnia. And we finally checked out the spa section of the hotel. Pretty swanky. I was alone in the outdoor pool and the textile free sauna.

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It’s making a little more sense. It’s like a huge ski area with many base villages (Except these villages are really villages). All interconnected with lifts of various kinds. Today we noted each lift and actually knew where we were some of the time. So 24 lifts, 20? runs. (Some of the lifts were just took us to another lift.) Fillippo is in orange pants and green jacket usually getting in line for the lift as I am stopping to grab a photo…

So, you go to the ski locker room in the base of the hotel, boot up, carry skis outside and put them on, and ski to the first lift. At the end of the day you ski back to the hotel (It’s at the bottom of the Gran Rise piste).

There are 205 lifts all together. Currently 195 operating.

So, we survived our first day skiing in the Dolomites. We are still confused about the names of places. We do know we are staying in a town called La Villa, which is in a valley called Alta Badia, but pretty sure we went far far beyond this valley today. Because today was our best weather day (clear) our guide suggested we use today to get to the top of the Queen of the Dolomites, the Marmolada. What a view! Of course we had to ride 3 trams up up up, then climb 4 flights of stairs to get to the top observation deck.

Each town here has lifts to get you up onto ridges or peaks, from which you can ski down in several directions. At the bottom you choose one of the lifts there and head back up in a new direction. What a great thing to have a guide so we didn’t have to struggle with figuring out the map, or even where we were. All we knew/hoped was that at the end of the day, we would up back at our hotel in La Villa.

We met Fillippo in our hotel at 8:30. By 9 we had our rental skis and were in his car. We took a very short ride to the Dolomiti Superski Pass office where we showed our vaccination cards and got our passes validated for the week. From there, a short walk to our first lift, a 6 person gondola. A little after 4pm we skied back to Hotel ChrisiAnia and dumped our skis and boot into a ski locker in the hotel basement. We plan to ski less tomorrow. More stops for coffee and chocolate. Pics to come.

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