Day 3 – The Alpenhotel Ratsberg

Jan 14, 2020

Today’s Blog Entry

Cindy and I had a great Tuesday wandering the hiking trails just north of Dobbiaco, IT. Our main reason for visiting this area was cross-country skiing. Unfortunately we have found that the snow is rather thin; there hasn’t been any fresh snow here in many days and the sun can be quite intense so we’re going with plans B and C – snowshoeing and winter hiking. No big deal; we enjoy these alternatives and they give us a good idea of what a summer trip to this area would offer in terms of terrain.

Today we started from our apartment and followed marked trails up through Aufkirchen, across the face of Monte Rota to Ratsberg, down into Wahlen, and back to Dobbiaco. This made a loop of about seven miles with 1200 feet of vertical. The highlight of the day, aside from the spectacular scenery, was a wonderful lunch on the sun terrace at the Alpenhotel Ratsberg (https://www.alpenhotel-ratsberg.com/). This terrace offered a great view to the south over Dobbiaco and into the pass towards Cortina d’Ampezzo.

Cindy is busy working on our outings for the rest of the visit taking the weather forecasts into account; she already has the next couple of days planned in detail and has some neat ideas to carry us through to the 24th when we head north to Innsbruck, Austria – stay tuned! As with our last two trips to Europe, the Internet has been an indispensable tool for making realtime plans that let us make the most of our visit …