riding the Falzarego pass in the Dolomites

a cloudy sunday
a couple in need of fresh air and freedom
a vintage lambretta
a pass in the Dolomites, between Agordo and Cortina d'Ampezzo

ride a vintage scooter through the Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse, Austria's most beautiful panoramic road

riding a lambretta through the Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse

since I had found out about Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse, a panoramic road in Austria which, on paper, seemed a wonderful way to spend one of our lambretta weekends away, I've been hoping to find a lovely autumn day to enjoy it to the fullest.

good weather was an indispensable requirement to confront the long road and the highest mountain of Austria. since we were planning our little trip for mid-October, of course we weren't completely sure we were actually going to leave until the day before: we checked the weather forecast everyday that week, but even when the nice symbol of the sun steady showed up on our screens, we've never dreamt we'd be so lucky! we have ridden through Austria's highest scenic road on the best autumn day you could imagine, with blue cloudless sky and a view made of stunning mountain peaks, snow and those amazing warm tones that you can find during October in the Alps.

I will never forget it, it has been one of the most beautiful ride of my life, so I've prepared this detailed post to share all the informations with you ♥

early autumn alpine weekend in Cortina d'Ampezzo

the pink hues of a Dolomites sunset

we started the new season in our own way, by taking a couple of days by ourselves, to go to the most beautiful town of the Dolomites, our dear Cortina d'Ampezzo. 

in spite of being quite close to our home, less than 90 kilometers, even when we visit for a day or just an afternoon (it happens), the chilly air and the stunning alpine landscape don't fail to make me feel happier, somehow clearer and recharged. it's mountain magic, nature magic. 

we visited some old spots and tried new ones, starting with a lovely glamping experience at the international camping Olympia, where we rented the cosiest wooden tent.

the blue hour  in Cortina, outside our wooden tent at camping Olympia 

Arte Sella: contemporary art in the woods

one of the (many) perks of film photography is that you look at your pictures more often. a few days ago I was tidying one of my drawers and found the roll taken in a beautiful summer day from last year.

it was august and we had just come back from our lambretta road trip in southern France. you may expect we'd take a little break from the road, but clearly we were feeling nostalgic already, and went to a field trip to Arte Sella, an international outdoor exhibition of contemporary art set up between the fields, woods and mountains of Trentino Alto Adige, in the municipality of Borgo Valsugana.

Belluno | a little guide

i felt it was about time to write some more practical posts about this little corner of Italy where we live in. i didn't want them to be too dry and schematic, i want them to have the same amount of inspirational stuff and charm that a regular post of this blog has. we asked a friend to be our local guide for one day and we had fun playing the tourists, listening, taking pictures and sketching.

the result is this little guide to Belluno, completely i diari della lambretta style: there are insiders tips, illustrations, film photos and some reasons to fall in love with the town. enjoy!

ponte della vittoria {victory bridge} and a look to the city centre | fujicolor 200

ENI village in Borca di Cadore. October, Saturday 10th

i've been wanting to visit the ENI village for a long time. it opens to the public just on special occasions, and i was thrilled to finally see a guided tour organized by Progetto Borca on a day we could attend. 

we rode to Borca di Cadore {near Cortina d'Ampezzo, in the amazing Dolomites} by lambretta.

given the cold and gloomy day, it was kind of risky, but in the end we were able to make a lambretta field trip out of it. 

we enjoy visiting places like this one, that we consider the most special and interesting, even more when we visit them by scooter.

alpine botanical garden in Cansiglio. July, Sunday 12th

donkeys on our way back from the Cansiglio alpine botanical garden

how many amazing things we did in July! it confirms itself as my favorite month. i cannot wait to tell you everything about our Sicilia road trip, but we're not quite there yet. {i shared a little preview on Steller yesterday though}

during hot summer days i amore even more grateful than usual that we live so close to the mountains. just a quick lambretta ride and we can step into the enchanting Cansiglio forest, the closest green getaway. 

June, Sunday 7th. brent de l'art, multi coloured wild canyon

when the heat is unbearable, we are grateful to live so close to the mountains, so we can jump on the lambretta and ride to a cooler place, like brent de l'art in Trichiana.

a weekend away, in the green. September, 27th-28th

sometimes you just need to go away for a couple of days. embrace the road. enjoy the shades of greens. smell the autumn. feel the mountain. discover new textures of the nature. soak in the quiet. 

Casso. August, Sunday 17th

maybe i subconsciously link the ilford film's mood and dramatic grain to places with a troubled past.

Casso | ilford 125

Poffabro and Frisanco. April, Saturday 26th

Frisanco and Poffabro are two towns near the Carnic Alps. we visited them in a cloudy and warm april weekend. they are as enchanting as they're quiet. we explored them by feet, cause the tiny streets were too narrow, and the silence was so solid, we did not want to disturb. 

April, Sunday 6th. snow & vintage scooters

apparently, this is what marco does when i'm away for work.

christmas market in Bruneck. December, Sunday 1st

shiny brezel, cups of hot beverages to warm up cold fingers, holiday mood until your head spins. 

in small doses, i love christmas markets. 

i usually pay my visit early, when they are just opened and not so crowded. this year, i went to Brunico/Bruneck with my family, on the first sunday of december. Brunico is a lovely town in South Tyrol, a good place for a stroll or outdoor fun, both in summer and winter. 

needless to say, my favorite market stalls where the food & beverage themed ones. from candies to hot dogs, from local cheese (!) to local salami (!!). i had my nose frozen but a warm feeling inside.

 so far it had been the only christmassy thing i've done this year. all the big lunches and dinners are going to start next week.

what do you do during the holiday season? any nice tradition?

romantic walk in Mezzano. August, Sunday 11th

another day in Trentino: a lovely sunday spent with my family wandering around the stunning Primiero Valley. anna, giovanni, marco and i took a morning walk surrounded by sunny Dolomites.

then, our afternoon gently passed in the exploration of Mezzano, a tiny village wonderfully still devoted to agriculture and handicraft work rather than tourism. 

Mezzano is quiet, beautiful. its people have experienced joy, love, pain, hard work, loss, hunger, as you can read by the old stone walls. not just metaphorically speaking. there are many stories and facts well narrated on small boards hung on the outer walls of houses. it's as if the village is directly speaking to its guests.

a path called Mezzano romantica {romantic Mezzano} follows the most peculiar and beautiful rural signs to
a deeper understanding of the territory, showing and explaining buildings, old water harvesting system, traditions and daily life.

woodpiles are the most distinctive features of the village.
the long winters have always forced the Dolomiti inhabitants to make copious stock of firewood to heat their homes. so, neat and towering woodpiles are everywhere. in the local language they are called canzèi, and every canzèl is a small masterpiece of care, skill and parsimony, that also colors the streets of a vivid palette of warm shades.

in addition to that,a group of artists has been asked to reinterpret the woodpiles concept to create artworks, so now you can find some beautiful and weird canzèi near to the ordinary ones.

 ,,

p.s. my sister and i are cat people. always been, always will. but we love dogs, too. and now we have a dog! you can take a peek at him in some pictures. his name is oreste.

{nikon f-801 + fujicolor 200}

sunrise in the Dolomites. August, Saturday 10th

Morning is due to all —

To some — the Night —

To an imperial few —

The Auroral light.

{Emily Dickinson}

Malga Preghena di Sotto, Val di Non. h 5.30 AM

i am an earlybird. i love the morning light, the silence, the chill, the expectations, to peacefully plan my day sipping coffee on the couch. but i usually don't get up so early to see the sun rise. i did it in a cold and clear August morning, after a stormy night, and i saw the mountains waking up with me.

our alarm clock rang at five, it was still dark, too dark for pictures, we had a quick sip of coffee and run out to see the cows, who were loudly coming back from the pastures for the morning milking.
where and why did i do that?

we were hosted at Malga Preghena, in Trentino Alto Adige region. cows usually spend the summer in the mountain pastures, from the end of may to the end of september. during these months, the herders live in a mountain hut with a stable and a dairy. this place it's called malga. in the past, a malga's only purpose was to be a place where a family and their cows live, but now most of them are also a good place to eat and buy fresh products.

this summer, some malghe in Trentino offered the possibility to spend the night there, wake up with the family and watch their daily work. a chance to get closer to a lesser known reality. this project was called albe in malga: sunrise in malga.
this was not my first malga experience, but i had the chance to get a better look to the hard work of the family that runs the place.

oh, and the golden light that slowly came from the surrounding mountains to reach us? totally made ​​me forget the ungodly hour at which we woke up. (together with the crazy delicious breakfast we had after the milking!)

the Raganello Valley

our days in Calabria were intense. a endless stream of new words, flavours, skylines, gestures.
we explored a valley located in the biggest italian national park {Parco Nazionale del Pollino}, the Raganello Valley. Raganello is a stubborn stream that carved its way out of high limestone rocks, so the valley's landscape is a mosaic composed by vertiginous rock walls,  great reddish promontories, five small villages {Civita, San Lorenzo Bellizzi, Cerchiara, Francavilla Marittima and Alessandria del Carretto} and the fierce and cold watercourse.

Civita and the timpe. "timpa" is the local word for the hilly rock formations

as my senses were wide open and almost overwhelmed, i want to try to tell you what i experienced through sensations, hoping that from many small details you could catch a glimpse of the whole life and traditions of this little piece of Calabria, still untouched by the mass tourism.

a list of nice sounds

Albanian flag in Civita

- arbëresh language and songs. arbëreshë people are a linguistic minority that settled in some southern Italy villages in 15th century, after the ottoman turk conquest of Albania. i think it's amazing that they still are able to speak their native language, cook the dishes of their own gastronomy, know how to dance and sing their traditional songs and keep their ethnic spirit alive. preserving customs for so long in a different country with such a strong identity and long history it's hard. in Civita there is an ethnic museum, bilingual signs and Albanian flags are everywhere. arbëreshë families still speak arbëresh language at home. 

popular Calabria melodies, played with the accordion, are frequently mixed up with arbëreshë songs. 

a shot from our popular music night 

 - the roaring water stream. it seems that the name Raganello comes from the latin word ragare, which means to drag. when it rains it is said that you can hear noises  in the river gorge, similar to those that make barrels when they roll along a cobbled street downhill.

Raganello's lower gorge, in San Lorenzo Bellizzi

- the silence at the Porta del Pollino. after we hiked in the national park's woods for a couple of hours, we reached a plateau with a wonderful panorama on the surrounding timpe. the silence was made solemn by the presence of  bosnian pines {pinus heldreichii}. the majestic trees watched over the horizon. some of them were dead, and just lied there like great sculptures, or oversized fossils.

bosnian pines in Pollino national park

a list of nice tastes and smells 

short premise: we ate way too much. be prepared if you go there.
- goat milk and goat ricotta. okay, i was an easy target, i love goat cheese. and cheese in general. and milk. but these were insanely good. the goats that graze on the timpe eat lots of aromatic herbs which makes their milk and cheese so rich in flavors.
drinking a glass of warm milk at breakfast made me feel like i was lying on a meadow, with herbs, flowers and a stunning landscape.

ricotta making at Azienda Agrituristica La Grotta, San Lorenzo Bellizzi

- real homemade traditional meals. from tagliatelle to the amazing salami, i loved that everything was local, made at home or in small farms. prosciutto, capocollo, soppressata... and you're still wondering why i said that i ate too much?

making pasta at Azienda Agrituristica Grampollina, San Lorenzo Bellizzi

- spice up your life. small, hot, red peppers are kings. as an ingredient, like inside the nduja {a spicy sausage}, or served by itself as a side dish, you'll meet it at any meal.

hot peppers in a small shop

- smell of oregano. walking on the timpe, we could smell it everywhere. fresh, fragrant oregano. we harvested two big bunches, and used it to make an infusion in the evening. it was relaxing and really helped our overstressed stomach. {thanks to Anna from green holiday italy for having this brilliant idea!}

a list of nice sights

- frank and proud faces. usually, it's the people we meet that make our travels special. even if we barely know them and just exchange a few words.

an old lady, an agriturismo owner, a view of a small square in San Lorenzo Bellizzi. the old lady talked to me in a very incomprehensible Calabria dialect, but i understood that she told me it was going to rain soon (i was very proud of myself). guess if she was right.

- small details of a simple faith. i like when faith is showed in a humble way. i could catch some details that can testimony the spirituality of the places we visited. a bell and a madonna icon in Santa Maria dell'Armi sanctuary; a crucifix in a bakery {did i mention that the bread was delicious, too? try the Cerchiara bread!}; a stone church surrounded by mountains.

- moving landscapes. here my favorite landscape shot of this trip. it was about to rain, just like the old lady  had said.

the view from Sant'Anna

goat cheese and legends. May, Saturday 25th

"behind every cheese there is a pasture of a different green under a different sky: meadows caked with salt that the tides of Normandy deposit every evening; meadows scented with aromas in the windy sunlight of Provence; there are different flocks, with their stablings and their transhumances; there are secret processes handed down over the centuries."

Italo Calvino, Mr. Palomar

nowadays, our modern palates are no longer used to the tastes of biodiversity. this is the first lesson we learned after we got off the Altopiano di Asiago, and arrived to agriturismo Al Cucco, surrounded by woods and stream waters. {if you don't remember what an agriturismo is, check this post for the definition}
when you produce non-industrial cheese, it's difficult to obtain the same taste every time, although the procedure and the doses are just the same: you can not predict what herbs or flowers the goat will eat tomorrow, or if she is going to stay in the stable because it's raining. 
for the one of us who are used to eat cheeses that have all the same taste, this could be disturbing. but it should be fascinating! when you taste a cheese, you're tasting the enviroment where the goat {or the cow}is living, the greens of the pasture, the different wind, sky, temperature, tradition. just like Calvino's quote says. 
 

chamoisee alpine goats

a blonde woman named Marianna is the landlady of agriturismo Al Cucco. she was a chemist but left her job to open this farm, raise goats and make cheese. she's not the only one who make that choice. she told us there is a small but increasing "return to the earth" that they're experiencing around there. people with good office jobs who decide to quit and follow the dream of making something grow with their hands. i think i'll do the same someday.

Marianna showed us how she makes her goat caciotta.

Marianna is a former chemist who had left her job to open an agriturismo, raise goats and produce cheese

Marianna is not just a cheese makers, she also knows a lot of local legends and old stories. while we were taking a walk in the woods, she showed us small tunnels dug into the rocks, excavated during the war and used as deposits.
then, she told us some legends about the anguane. an anguana is a fairy creature typical of the alpine mythology, related to the water, with characteristics that are partly similar to those of a nymph. 

in the Dolomites, anguane are frequently described as young women, often very attractive and able to seduce men, at other times, however, appear as half girls and half reptile or fish, capable of launching loud cries.
Marianna's story described how the anguane live near waters, and spend the nights washing and hanging white sheets to the moonlight. 
another lengend was about the salvanelli, pixies that have fun making jokes to the farmers overnight, like weaving togheter the cow's tails.

legends an old stories in the woods

out of the woods, we arrived at a semi-abandoned hamlet {in the local dialect, a contrà}. lots of rural houses have been abandoned, or, like some of them, are used as a summer house for old people who live in the city and come here to have some fresh healthy air.  

that give to those houses a melancholic look, suspended between being charming and being haunted.

{olympus om10 + fuji superia 200}

info
Agriturismo Al Cucco
loc. cucco, 2 - 36040 Valdastico (VI)
agriturismoalcucco@alice.it