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20
Jun 16

Madonna & marmot

Got up, packed up the tent, said goodbye to Cortina and headed over to Madonna di Campiglio, for a bit of change of scenery. Had a nice strudel breakfast by the lake. Then we drove merrily out of the mountains and into the sunshine.
Arriving to Madonna in the afternoon, we stopped by Passo del Groste for a quick trip up the cable car to see the snow situation for tomorrow. We pottered around Rifugio Stoppani for a bit, and indeed it seemed that Sosat ferrata still under snow and closed – which was then further confirmed by a couple of German climbers who’ve just been there.

Rif. Stoppani

Rif. Stoppani

For now, we walked up a bit towards Gustavo Vidi, and the place was alive with marmots. We had especially one fun encounter with the brave soul of the pack who gives the warning to the rest, and who valiantly faced us standing up.

Bird of prey

Bird of prey

Marmot

Marmot

In addition, we saw a great bird of prey, which was truly huge & majestic, of which Iest thinks was an eagle, which probably was not but huge, it really was.
Afterwards we took the last cable car down and found our usual campsite at Adamelo, and – after a little search around – also our usual restaurant for dinner.

Travel — No Comments
05
Sep 12

Milan to Madonna di Campiglio

Our next destination was the fashion and design metropolis that is Milan! I *think* we had a leisurely morning over in Levanto, and slowly cruised up with Claude to the big city.

I loved Milan. A very beautiful city, and it seemed there was a lot going on here, but we didn’t fancy hanging around too long, as we’d been watching the weather all week – and we’d spotted that the weather in the mountains was now clearing up, and it looked like there was glorious sunshine up North. After all, this was supposed to be a Ferrata trip!

We arrived at Milan at around 14:00, and the first stop was the glorious Cathedral square.

Milan Cathedral

Gina’s Lomography

The Cathedral was mighty impressive, the facade was in-sane. So much detail, with crazy statues and gargoyles decorating the whole thing. We spent a good few minutes walking around the square, admiring the impressive front before heading inside for a ground floor tour – which was impressive! The quality and detail on everything was spectacular!

Detail: Stained glass windows

Detail: Facade statues

We then decided to potter around the centre a bit, just to experience what Milan had to offer, and came aross the mighty ‘Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II’ one of the world’s oldest shopping malls – and was filled to the brim with designer fashion shops. From here, we headed back towards the Cathedral for a few more pics, back to Claude, as we had an epic journey on our hands – back to the Dolomites!

Gina, Diana and the Cathedral

Iest and the Cathedral

Ahead of us we had a 4 hour car journey from Milan to Madonna di Campiglio – back towards Lake Garda and up high into the Dolomites. Once we reached the mountains, it became really dark – and I was driving through a massive thunder and lightning storm, it was incredibly dramatic. we found ourselves a nice camping spot, and settled down to the sound of distant thunder – hoping that the weather reports were correct for the next coming days.