Skiing the Dolomites - Part Two

We woke to a partly cloudy sky and panoramic view of the Dolomites. It was stunning.










Our hotel, Hotel Piz Sateur, is about halfway up the mountain, and has amazing views. It is ski-in/ski-0ut (what a treat!).

We wandered downstairs to breakfast and wanted to sit at a table where we could see outside, but were gently reminded that we had an assigned table (huh?). . .

Yes, in typical German/Austrian efficiency, we had been assigned a table the night before without even realizing it. To quote the great British line, "Sorry". The couple whose table we stole gave us dirty looks, but didn't say anything to the rude and brash Americans. We enjoyed croissants and nutella, some sliced meats and cheese and enjoyed our breakfast and view. I had a fantasitic Italian espresso machiatto.


Tony and I looked over the trail map of the mountain. It is MASSIVE. We won't be able to ski this place in one day - let alone three. In hind site we had NO IDEA how HUGE this place is. We wouldn't get an understanding of that until tomorrow.

In order to get our 3 day passes, Tony and I needed to ski down to the Ski Pass office in town. It was easily a good mile or two.

Thankfully it was a beautiful downhill series of runs. We felt very fortunate to be in such an amazing place.

The runs are groomed nightly, and are absolutely fabulous. Most are easy to intermediate with few really challenging runs, and the ski lifts are almost all detachable. There are also many gondolas, and they have one huge tram. We'd later learn that throughout the mountain, there are several trams. I can only imagine how many people this resort is built to handle, but for the most part, there were almost no lines, and the runs were not crowded at all! I'd come back here again easy!

We took the gondola to the top, and admired the amazing scenery. It is unbelievable how beautiful this place is.





The food is great too. We had a Hot Cioccolate as a pick me up, and then later had pizza while sitting on a deck on what looked like the top of the world. I've seen some amazing pasta dishes that I can't wait to try.

There is this fun cross-pollination of German/Austrian/Italian cultures here in that we ended our day at our hotel's Biergarten. It was getting a little cold and starting to snow, so we had a Paulaner bier and called it a day.

The hotel also has a spa, so I went down there to steam and clear my sinuses before dinner. We then attempted to use the WiFi and Skype to talk to family and friends back home. The signal wasn't very strong, so we had to go down into the bar/restaurant to use it. I managed to reach my parents in Arizona briefly, but it was difficult keeping a solid connection so we eventually gave up.

We had a wonderful dinner of entrecote, homemade pasta with venison, pumpkin soup and mushroom polenta and retired to bed. I fell asleep dreaming of Big Snow the next day. I had no idea how much there would be!