Sunday 3rd September: Weather: 15°C to 31°C: Cool walk, sunny skies all day, warm 31°C in Fiero di Primero
S. Martino di Castrozza to Cant del Gal: 15.3k walk: 5h: 8.30am to 1.30pm: 1 x 30min stop: Asc 340m Des 790m
Day Walk: San Martino di Castrozza to Cant del Gal, then bus return to San Martino di Castrozza
Accommodation: Sport Club Residence San Martino di Castrozza
View back to S Martino di Castroza
Forrest balcony walk to Cant del Gal
Mountain bike stop-checks on route
MTB track from Cant del Gal
Col del Cistri 1,608 m - not too high
Coffee at Col del Cistri with views to beautiful Val Canali
Log pile more than two stories tall!!
Lunch Cant del del Gal end of Hike
Fiera di Primiero to the bus stop
Highlight was an unplanned hike of 15.3k from San Martino di Castorzza to Cant del Gal, a place where our Dolomiti walk was supposed to end but didn’t because the previous Rifugio Pradidali was full. A wonderful balcony walk through the forests above the valley between San Martino di Castrozza and Cant del Gal, then bus to Fiera di Primiero and back to di Castrozza.
We’ve had a restful night after stripping out the doona from the cover and just using the cover as a sheet. Many times in the past few nights, the doona is way too heavy for a warm room, even if it’s freezing outside. By morning it was cool enough to throw a large dry towel over us. (no blanket’s here). We’re awake at 6am with no particular walk planned. We have breakfast of fruit (Banana and peach) with yoghurt, look at the map and decide to walk the route suggested by the tourist office along a forest path to Rifigio Velo della Madonna at 2,358m. It seemed like a good idea, as I had nothing else in mind for our last day in the Dolomites and we didn’t want another kinda yesterday’s via ferrata hike.
We set off at 8.30am towards the Col Verde/Rosetta Cable car bottom station and see a sign off to the right to the Rifugio Velo della Madonna. The wide path through the forest is a beautiful balcony walk over the San Martino Valley. We soon see utes stacked with posters for a Mountain Bike Race in two weeks time, and men hammering in signposted stations along the way. We also see a sign for 11.3k to Cant del Gal. Now that rings a bell. We were supposed to finish there to catch a bus after our last hike on the AV2 from Rifugio Pradidali which was full, so we abandoned this plan to stay at di Castrozza instead. From earlier homework I knew there was a bus fron Cant del Gal, so after a quick pow wow, we decided to walk there and catch the bus back to di Castrozza.
The plan worked well. It was a beautifil walk on a beautifil day along a forestry path with stacks of logs two stories high every few hundred metres along the track. After 3 hours of easy walking we reached Col del Cistri, a not-too-high 1,608metre col set on an alpine meadow with hay makers raking and turning the hay to dry. We have a coffee overlooking the small Val Canali with towering dolomites on each side and tracks to Rifugio Pradidali to the left and Rifugio Treviso to the right - both on the AV2.
Another two hours down wide dirt tracks and minor bitumin roads and we arrive at Cant del Gal at 1.30pm. It's the prettiest Rifugio nestled at the end of Val Canali with one hundred or so cars in the car park - it’s Sunday with all the day hikers out in force. We check out the bus stop time table which indicates the next bus to Fiera di Primiero (on the main highway) is at 2.19pm. Time for a lunch break of tea and another spicy fruit roll - not too many left - just enough for a snack in Munich.
The bus is already to leave and we see people getting tickets so we rush over and fiddle with the automatic ticket machine for 10 minutes before realising it's the ticket machine for the car park - not the bus. We jump on the bus, most apologetic for not having a ticket and hold out a 10 euro note - and he says prego, prego - which means there you go, get on etc. We don’t know exactly what prego means but it is an all encompassing Italian word for OK.
Ten minutes later the little bus drops us in the centre of another bustling mountain village, Fiera do Primiero. The bus timetable there indicates the return bus back to San Martino di Castrozza leaves at 6.30pm, 4 hours away. We google the tourist office to see if they can help interpret the bus time table, but when we get there it had closed at 12.30pm. However it was right next door to the bus autostazione,with an electronic board showing the next bus was at 5.20pm - a bit better then 6.20pm, and it was a private bus, whatever that means. So we wait - and listen to Italian chatter of people waiting for various buses.
We wait for over two hours, watching the departing buses to Trente, Imer and Venice. Finally a nondescript bus arrives with a sign for Predazzo which we konw is in the direction of di Castrozza, so we jump on and offer to pay, only to be told prego, prego. So we jump on. It’s a very pretty ride up the valley and I marvel at the skill of the bus drivers in the mountains, negotiating hairpin bends with other buses, cars and motor cyclists meeting at each turn.
We arrive in San Martino do Castrozza just before 6pm, and wander to the Tourist Office to double checkout tomorrow’s exit strategy to Bolzano. The young girl re-conforms that no matter which way we go, it’s a 4 hour trip on three buses and one train. Back to our apartment where we unpack the day pack, and sit down to a few nuts and a cold beer/wine to celebrate the end of our wonderful 24 days in the dolomites. Dinner is a cheese snack while waiting for the minestrone soup from a packet to heat on the slow-cook cast iron burner, followed by ham, tomato, cheese, butter and mayonnaise on bread heated in the microwave.
Time to sort the last of our Dolomite photos and blog before showering and bed. Where to next year?? Maybe the Swiss Alps again?