Cable Cars of the Dolomites

Disclaimer again: This is blog entry 3/3 from our Dolomites trip in June 2022. Better late than never tho innit!

I love cable cars.

Nikki doesn’t.

Or at least didn’t.

She has quite a fear of heights and really did not promise to join me in any cable car escapades during our trip to the Italian Alps.

And it seemed she was in luck, as we evidently happened to have timed our trip right_bang_wollop_in_between_seasons. The winter season ended in April; the summer season began in mid-June. We were there in early June. There was a cable car which departed literally metres from our accommodation, but alas only from the 13^th of June onwards. Oh well.

Nikki did express special interest in visiting an epic mountain where a cable car was one possible mode of transportation (in addition to feet). We decided to keep the manner of transportation up open, and drove off to Seceda, a few hours away.

Again, the trip was peppered with magnificent peaks, and the weather wasn’t eternal rain like predicted, but just vaguely cloudy.

Again, we were in dire need of a shop, so we stopped at the same shop we’d discovered the previous day where we purchased sweetcorn and dry focaccia pizza. I also went in hunt of breakfast, and went down exploring the little places of this very Swiss-vibed mountain town. A place called Garnier Erica was advertising food, and I went in and the lady inside was extremely friendly, and confirmed that they do do savoury foods as well (after learning the previous day that a savoury breakfast is not a thing in Italian cafes).

So, I hailed Nikki, and we both ordered savoury breakfasts and it was probably the best food I have ever eaten in Italy.

Invigoured by our taste buds and the hospitability of Garnier Erica, we headed onwards towards Seceda.

As we approached Seceda some darker clouds approached too – luckily no rain yet, though.

After we parked at an expensive carpark with an extremely dodgy payment machine (as we found out afterwards, turned out the button you had to press to get your ticket was one of the buttons that was NOT illuminated and aka looked broken), Nikki looked upwards apprehensively. The peak of Seceda wasn’t exactly a hop away, and Nikki was not enthusiastic about parking fees. And the clouds were a bit dodge.

“Shall we do the cable car?” she suggested.

Oh ho. I didn’t jump at it, as it cost 37 euros and there was little guarantee of us seeing anything but clouds at the peak. However, this was NIKKI wanting to go by CABLE CAR, and in the end, the one thing in life I am willing to spend perhaps unnecessary money on is travel experiences, and plus also it would indeed take hours to hike up to Seceda… so, ok!

We hopped on the cable car and I took very entertaining videos of Nikki fearing for her life, wondering what had got into her, feeling reassured that if the cable car falls the death will hopefully be quick, commenting drily that they have conveniently placed a graveyard directly below the cable car route.

We went up up up, towards the clouds. At some point we changed cable cars – from the little one, just for the two of us, to a large single one which housed other people too.

Turned out this one was the most exciting, and the fact which made it so memorable was also the same fact which sort of ruined the rest of the trip – ASCENDING INTO THE CLOUDS.

Atmospheric innit.

A bit about where we were headed, from one source: The summit of Seceda (2518 meters) is a dearly loved destination in the Dolomites because of its unbeatable view of the Odle/Geisler Peaks. Atop Seceda, the Odle peaks look like a Swiss army knife, eternally destined to slash the sky. It’s one of the most memorable mountain views in the Italian Dolomites.

Well, the peak of Seceda was, well, foggy. And the unbeatable view of the Odle/Geisler Peaks? Still unbeatable. Didn’t quite find them.

Nikki tried to make out where the picturesque peak would be, I happily resigned myself to enjoying the eerie/magical atmosphere of the clouds. At some point I did have a mission – imagine the GLORIOUSNESS of ascending ABOVE THE CLOUDS. Imagine, you’re on a wet fog-covered mountain, zero visibility, and then you go a bit higher and suddenly you are on a sun-washed white peak, with nothing but piercing blue sky above you, and fluffy white clouds below you…

Spoiler, that didn’t happen. But I did live in the potential for some ten minutes before giving up to ever-increasing rain, ever-lessening visibility, and very squelchy feet.

Once we were both decently drenched in the drizzle, we decided to head back indoors. We had stodgy hot chocs lathered with cream at the emptyish Seceda restaurant which was playing very vigorous mountain-hike-motivating music from its outdoor speakers, not quite matching the weather (stuff like Dragostea din tei), then we departed, leaving puddles on the floor from our dripping clothes, called it a day and decided to go down the cable car, find out how to get the car out of the carpark, and head back to our hotel to dry off.

The next day involved a cable car in better weather, however.

It was the day we had to leave, so we could only manage a few hours of excursion in the morning, so we headed up the road of 24 curves (or however many there were) (just googled it, apparently “28 hairpin bends”) to reach our closest peak at Pass Pordoi.

We wouldn’t have time to climb the mountain itself, but it was atmospheric all the same. I had fun going upwards, seeing how far I could get, when Nikki called me and gestured for me to come back down. I came down, wondering what the matter was.

She had spotted a cable car.

A cable car which could get us to the top in no time, meaning we’d have time to see the summit.

Well SURE, Nikki, WHY NOT.

So without further ado we paid far less than we did for the previous day’s fog of a cable car and jumped onto the next cable car. This was a big one which fit about twenty people, and there was one going up and one going down.

It was exciting, even more exciting noticing there were bits of snow on the way up – hadn’t expected THIS.

And it kept going up, and when we reached the summit we were both BLOWN AWAY. It was MAGIC. It was SO SNOWY.

I felt like I was on the Moon level of Minicar Racing (childhood game where after you’ve completed all the other levels you get to race on the moon, and here it’s best to revert back to your original, tiny, cheap Mini instead of the Ferrari you purchased most recently, because the Mini’s the one that can deal with gravitylessness the best).

We wandered about, blissed out, taking cool pics.

Anyone who has ever WhatsApped me or Nikki since June will not have failed to see this majestic backdrop.

I guess it remains so MAGICAL in my mind still because of the time limitation, too. We knew we only had about twenty minutes before having to head back.

And boy were those some twenty minutes of perfection.

The highlight of both of ours’ trip.

So, that was three entries on the Dolomites, Italy done.

Stay tuned for the next country 😉

Emzy

xxx