We are finishing our stay in the Dolomites, specifically, on the Seiser Alm – the Alpine meadow of incredible beauty.

I won’t rehash all of the things we did, although I AM wanting to describe every single flower I saw, and bird I heard, and every cloud that passed over me. Gosh, this place is really beautiful.

1 I am happy we did not have a rental car. This Alpine meadow (a plateau, essentially) is a protected UNESCO site, and cars are very restricted. It would have been a waste of money to have it here. Instead, we got by on foot, with chair lifts, and a local bus.

2 Alpine flowers. So many colors, shapes and sizes. Chunky bumblebees working their way in there. Adorable. The flowers provided a foreground and mountains were in the background.

3 South Tyrolean food. Lots of sausages, soups, potatoes. A Russian in me was happy.

4 We got caught in a thunderstorm! It was rather scary and we sought refuge in a restaurant. Got hot chocolate and hot tea, when it passed an hour later, continued with our hike.

5 We walked A LOT! Over 20K steps on our first day when we crossed the plateau. After that, we averaged over 10K daily steps. We spent a lot of time in the mountains, taking lifts up, then going down, because it’s easier to go downhill. Each hike would last anywhere from 2 to 5 hours – with a lunch break at one of the refuggios (small local cafés), and multiple rest stops.

6 The mountain weather was…crazy. We had tremendous luck where on many days we had sunny and crisp weather- 60s, low 70s. In the evenings it was almost a guarantee of thunderstorms.

On Tuesday we turned around after going up the mountain on a chair lift. One minute it was beautiful out, then next minute you SEE the fog rolling in over the mountain, and I watch way too many horror movies.. Plus my ears were freezing.

7 There is a million trails in this meadow, from very easy one to those requiring some serious mountain climbing skills. We did a different trail every day. Puflatsch, Spitzbühl, Panorama, Laurin, Florian, Zallenger, the Witches Benches. We also crossed the plateau from one end to another and took a lift to Ortisei (a town on the opposite side of the meadow).

8 We saw tons of families, from a variety of countries, with kids of various ages. Very young kids, much younger than mine, hiking happily, without a word of complaint. My children had some low moments where they collapsed in a heap onto Alpine grass and wondered whether we will rent a car (no), call a cab (no), rent a horse carriage (no), get ice cream at the end of the trail (of course). I pointed out to them there were much younger kids moving their feet so there was no doubt that they could do it, too.

9 Mountain sun is no joke: my husband got sunburnt.

10 At night, it was scarily quiet. Being from New Jersey, my husband and I could not sleep for the first few nights: too quiet! We missed the sounds of traffic and the sirens. He compared the place to an Agatha Christie’s murder novel 🤣

Next steps… T went back to Venice today to catch a flight back to the US tomorrow. Meanwhile, the kids and I are leaving the meadow today and are continuing with destination #3: the Garda lake.