Day 7 Cortina d'Ampezzo and Lezzeno: August 13

 

We only stayed one night in Cortina, so we went for a walk before breakfast to make the most of our time.

Cortina looks like an Austrian alpine village.

We loved the geraniums blooming on balconies.

We found some Olympic rings.

And another great bookstore. In our experience, bookstores have superior postcards.

This restaurant offered a trilingual breakfast.

The Boite River runs through the center of town. The historic bridge is undergoing repairs. This bridge was first built in 1909 and then was bombed by the Italians in 1918 during World War I. It might seem strange that the Italians bombed themselves, but Cortina was under Habsburg-Austrian control from 1511 until 1918. When the Austro-Hungarian Empire was defeated in World War I, Cortina became part of Italy. So the Italians bombed the Austrians.

The bridge was rebuilt in 1919. The original keystone from the bridge that was destroyed is displayed on the banks of the river.

Here's another view of the Boite River.

A church dedicated to Santi Filippo e Giacomo is in the center of town. We could see its distinctive green roof when we were hiking the Dolomieu trail. The bell tower is built out of dolomite.

A nearby water fountain mimics the shape of the bell tower.

After our walk, we returned to our hotel for breakfast and checked out. This is the view of construction from our hotel room balcony. The area with the crane used to be a parking lot for our hotel and other nearby businesses. It's currently under construction for the Olympics.  The construction blocked access , which is why we had a hard time finding the hotel when we arrived. After calling the front desk for help, we ended up parking about 15 minutes away at the edge of town and walking to the hotel.

The hotel clerk directed us to a free parking lot near the old Olympic stadium from 1956, but it was full when we arrived. We parked in the pay lot instead. By the way, this historic stadium will be the site of the curling competitions. The biggest events of the 2025 Olympics will be held in a stadium in Milan.

The pay lot was ridiculously expensive: €10 an hour. On the bright side, the maximum charge was €100. Basically we paid for a hotel room for our car.

At least it was a room with an amazing view. Cortina still has a lot of work to do before the Olympics begin in February. They are in good shape for the curling and women's alpine events. Not so much for the bobsled, skeleton and luge tracks which are still under construction. Their back-up plan is to move those events to Lake Placid, New York if the tracks are not completed in time. Parking and construction woes aside, Cortina is a jewel of a town and we would happily return if we had the opportunity.

On a map, we were headed due west to Lake Como. In reality, we dipped south to go around the big mountains and then drove north to the lake. Our destination was Lezzeno, one of the many towns that line the edges of Lake Como. We stayed at a lovely hotel called the Palazzo del Vicere. The hotel was built as a private residence in the 1700s, but the oldest parts of the house date back to the 1100s. Its current owners inherited the house in 2000. It had been uninhabited since the 1960s and needed a complete renovation. One of the owners completed an architecture degree in Milan before beginning the task.

The hotel was the epitome of relaxed, graceful elegance. The entry to the hotel was through a courtyard.

The courtyard patio had a partial view of the lake.

Lezzeno is a tiny, quiet town, but it's also located in one of the most famous vacation spots in the world. We decided to walk to dinner, rather than drive and try to find parking somewhere. We ate at the Helvetia, a very appropriately named restaurant since Helvetia is the Latin name for Switzerland. Lezzeno is about 15 miles away from Switzerland.

Our dinner was entirely Italian. Becky had a roasted vegetable pizza and Brandan had pasta aglio e olio.

After dinner we walked along the lake. The town is squished between the lake and the mountains. As far as we could tell, there is only one road for cars in town. The rest of the thoroughfares were only for pedestrians.

Here are a couple of more photos of the lake.

We walked through a city park with playground equipment and a little free library. Our neighborhood in Oregon has three little libraries like this, designed for sharing books.

The retaining wall gives a sense for how steeply the ground rises from the lake.

Our hotel had a private beach and we watched the sunset from the beach.

Here's the view looking the other direction.

Brandan skipped some rocks on the lake.

We stayed until we saw the lights shining in the town of Colonna across the lake.