postcard 56: last night's schnapps

fall in the Dolomites v2

I don’t think my dog knows what a squirrel is. She’s chased lizards and feral cats and marmots, but has never lived anywhere with big enough trees for squirrels and so when one inexplicably shows up on our daily walk by the sea, she’s perplexed. She chases it to a tree and stands there, looking at it for a solid minute before she climbs the tree, too. Topher and I are shocked into silence, watching our 60lb dog scrambling up a pine tree. She hangs there for a heartbeat before tumbling back out and landing heavily on the ground. She’s no worse for the wear but we get a pretty good laugh out of it over coffee.

There’s something quite sad about a home someone designed but never got the chance to live in, I think as we stroll through halls covered in red silk fabric and endless pineapple motifs. We’re back at the Miramare castle in Trieste, this time to go inside, armed with more information. We walk quietly through an enormous throne room, past bedrooms and drawing rooms, gazing out at the sea through the windows. There’s an oil painting of a pair of rabbits eating a cabbage and one of our town, Pula, when it was an important shipping port. The archduke was assasinated before the upper floors were ever completed. We get Hazelnut and have a picnic outside.

We’ve maxed out the mileage on our long-term rental and our new ride, a Ford Fiesta, is not quite as smooth as we climb into the mountains, but I hardly notice the carsickness between the ginger gummies I’m mainlining and the fairytale views all around me. I’ve never seen a fall like this. The deciduous trees down low are every shade from maroon to fire truck red, orange to yellow, and the pastures are back to fluorescent green thanks to late season rains. It only gets more incredible as we climb, the lower elevation woods giving way to conifer forests, crowned by my favorite weird and wonderful tree: the larch. Though I’ve seen them before, I still can’t get over how delightful it is to see yellow pine trees popping out of a deep green hillside. We’re farther into the season this year and they’re skewing more orange than yellow.

We stop on a lonely pass to take pictures and not a single car appears. The clouds are obscuring what I’m certain are very big mountains but it just gives everything a melancholy air that feels quintessentially fall. I’m still determined to get Topher up close and personal with an Alpine marmot, so when I see a symbol on Google Maps I make him pull over and we trek into the woods in the long evening shadows. The marmots seem to be hibernating already, but we rescue Hazelnut and walk her into the forest to get her zoomies out instead.

As we start climbing again, things begin to grow more familiar and I realize we’ve skiied the pass we’re creating. It’s Passo Sella, one stop on the Sellaronda that we tackled last spring. We stop at the top, the cold air invigorating, and run around taking pictures of the mountains finally freed from their clouds.

I’ve picked our hotel solely based on the fact that it was a screaming deal with my Hotels.com status, but when we arrive, muddy, in hiking boots and toting a large dog whose decided it’s shedding season, I realize it’s a little fancy for us. Our choices are to walk her through the restaurant to get to one elevator, past expensive steaks sitting out and waiting to be chosen by guests, or up another elevator that requires us to walk through the spa. We immeadiately devise a complicated system to get to our room using both elevators and crossing on the second floor, safe from fuzzy entrees and robe clad hotel guests.

It’s off season and three-quarters of the town is closed, so we opt to eat dinner in the hotel restaurant. Hazelnut stays in the room while we drink Prosecco and eat pasta dressed in overalls and joggers while the folks next to us are wearing cashmere sweaters and carrying designer bags. Of course, we use the coupon we were presented at check-in.

Despite our attempt to race the clock and best the weather forecast, it’s raining when we get to our trailhead. We were promised epic views but it’s mostly clouds as we start hiking, umbrella up. At each viewpoint we see just a hint of the base of a mountain, teasing us through the clouds. By the time we reach the first hut, we’re cold and ready for gluwein and a hot lunch. The mugs of mulled wine come out with entire pine tree springs in them and we attempt to drink through them, coughing at their strong smell, before just plucking them out. We’re the only ones on the patio when we arrive and the waiter, dressed in lederhosen despite the chilly weather, opens a cabinet with menus and silverware and, inexplicably, a single shot glass full of purple liquid. We joke about how long it’s been there and Topher orders schnitzel and I order spinach dumplings called knödel in cheese sauce. The plates come out decorated with an entire field of wildflowers, it seems.

We pay and the waiter asks if we want to try some homemade blueberry liquor. I say yes just as Topher says no and then, he brings me the lonely shot glass. And this, readers, is the difference between Europe and America because you bet I drank last night’s random blueberry schnapps. It tasted like wild berries and didn’t kill me so I count it as a win.

The valley between the trailhead and the mountain town we’re staying in is filled with vineyards. It’s news to me that wine grapes can grow in the mountains like this and I would have been obsessed even if they weren’t rows of gold as their leaves changed for autumn. I’m determined to find a tasting room for us to have a glass of wine and Topher drives us up steep and narrow roads, through the vines as we keep our eyes peeled and Hazelnut sticks her head out the windows. It’s absolutely breathtaking but we’re having no luck. Finally, we wind our way back to the main road and find a grocery store selling little bottles of wine from the valley and buy three to try in our hotel room. After the hot tub, that is.

I’m freezing and tired by the time we put on our swimsuits and robes and walk down the hall to the spa. There’s a small tub in the steamy indoor space and a dozen people already sitting in it. It doesn't feel warm on first touch but I get all the way, incredulously realizing it's just a swimming pool. My Colorado sensibilities are highly offended. We take hot showers and drink wine in bed with a bag of potato chips instead.

We’ve declined every other overpriced lift tickets to see the top of a mountain so far in Europe, but the photos of Seceda I’ve seen online have been tempting me. We’re staying just down the road from the cable car and when the sun comes out the next morning, we decide to gamble and pay the €100 for all of us to go to the top. It’s a two-lift process and we get our own gondola on the first leg so Hazelnut doesn’t even have to wear her muzzle (a requirement of most European public transit). She watches, transfixed as we cruise above the green pastures lined with colorful trees. Halfway we transfer to a tram and it’s mercifully not too crowded either.

When we step out of the lift station and catch the first view of the mountain, I immeadiately decide this was worth it. The peak itself looks like a tectonic plate was pushed up into the sky. The meadow runs nearly to the top, giving way to sheer cliffs on the other side. The whole valley is dotted with shepherd huts and wispy clouds nuzzle the rocks. It’s stunning.

We wander from viewpoint to viewpoint, taking photos and enjoying the perfect fall day. It’s chilly and sunny and the air smells deliciously crisp. We use a map to find the mountain, far in the distance, that we via ferrata’d around and carefully traverse a muddy spine out to a precarious point with the best views. Hazelnut bites at her leash when we get back down to the meadows, a clear signal she has a song in her heart, so Topher let’s her zoom across yet another UNESCO World Heritage Site. She’s grinning ear to ear when we get to the rifugio. They’ve spread manure across the field and it smells a little nasty, but the views are perfect and we order bombardinos (spiked, hot eggnog), tiramisu, apple streudel and fries for lunch. It feels like one last perfect goodbye (for now!) to European hut culture.

Hazelnut is exhausted on the way down and curls up to sleep on the gondola floor. We wake her up to point out the cows grazing below us and one, lone deer.

I’ve gotten deeply sidetracked trying to find one of the fritto misto places we passed in Trieste on Google Maps. Every time we decide to try sushi in southern Europe it's a bad idea, but this place looks…really good? And cheap? We hem and haw for several miles and then decide to do it. We get there just as they open and order Kirins, nigiri, a roll and some noodles. All trepidation fades as we take the first bite. It’s good, not just for here standards, but in general. We ride the high almost all the way home until a raccoon runs out under my tires on the dark highway. You win some, you sob for 50 miles some.

-Mikaela

Correction: In last week’s postcard, I said we bought 200 kg of prosciutto. A year in Europe obviously hasn’t cemented the metric system in my brain and that was supposed to be grams. We did not buy $20,000 worth of cured meat.