We woke up around 8 and were very happy that outside the sun was shinning. There were a few scattered clouds, but nothing to worry about (at least this is what we thought). We headed down to the ground floor to get our morning breakfast in the small but very warm restaurant of the hotel and after that we started loading our luggage again to the motorcycles. As for the cost of our staying, it cost 75€ for the room, which is a very good price. We started heading for Lago Di Carezza, but basically the plan was to go in places that the sun was out.
We headed through SS50 and then through SS241 for Bolzano. The route was more than exciting, all the way, since it was full of trees, lakes and rivers, while the altitude was continuously changing from low to high and reverse. The scenery was making your mind travel far away! It’s difficult to explain it with plain words.
Arriving at our first destination, we stopped at the ‘Lago Di Carezza’, which is right on the SS241 route. The lake is surrounded by thick fir-trees, while having a blue color on it, due to low temperature of the water that it holds. It’s a small lake, so you can easily walk around it in maximum 20 minutes, but in case you pass by the fence, there’s a penalty of 46€!
After our 40 minutes stop, the next scheduled stop for the night would be Cortina D’Ampezzo, a city that was located east of us. On the other hand, SS242 was being reported on alpineroads.com as the motorcyclists’ heaven, concerning the scenery and of course the asphalt and road condition on all its way. Since we didn’t want to leave without discovering what it means “Motorcyclists’ heaven”, we decided to make a small detour through SS242, which was north-west of us. So we continued SS241, where after a while it changed to SS12 and after 40 kilometers, were turned right on SS242, heading for Pso Di Gardena. Once again, the scenery and the road condition left us speechless. They were right!
Continuing for Cortina D’Ampezzo, the altitude showed us 2205m, according to the GPS, while the snow on most of the mountain tops was visible enough. Ski lifts were everywhere, connecting one mountain’s top with the other. The road twists were secure and predictable with stunning asphalt condition once again. A really interesting thing (at least to us the Greeks) worth mentioning is the countless bicycles that we’ve met along each peak that we’ve passed through our route, as also the hikers.
We continued driving along SS48 from Arabba until Cortina D’Ampezzo, where we finally arrived, in the afternoon. Cortina is mainly a winter resort which gathers lots of celebrities. Lots of stars and actors, Italians and foreigners, usually come in winter seasons for skiing. We didn’t want to continue the driving, so we decided to stay there for the night, since the clouds were already gathering up, while the temperature had already dropped at 12 degrees. After a few minutes of searching, we managed to book room to a very cosy hotel (Olympia) in the center of the city, for 100€ for a 3-bed. Everybody was speaking English fluently, so we took the opportunity to ask for more information about the area and the city. After settling our luggage, we decided to go for another evening coffee in the main pedestrian road of the city, as for the food later on; the restaurant that we ate was named “5 totti” and was located only a few meters away from our hotel.
Around 22:30, Nikos and Ploutonas decided to go for a drink, since it was still early and the driving kilometers we did that day weren’t too much to make us tired.
On the opposite side of the hotel, we were informed that the club there was one of the most “trendy” clubs in the town. Surprisingly, we discovered that it only had 20 people, 90% of them were men. We sat for about an hour and then we returned to the hotel. We started chatting with the receptionist that had the night shift. He informed us about various alternative routes that we could drive through, watching at the same time the sightseeing. Lots of appetite for chatting from his side… lots of sleeplessness from our side, these were the best conditions for a quiet night. After approximately 2 hours of talking, information exchange and tasting of local traditional drinks, we returned to our rooms.