November 2019 – Bernd's Travel

Living close to Switzerland has the advantage, that we can do day trips to the swiss alps all year long. Last December we took advantage of the close proximity and visited the Titlis mountain. The Titlis is part of the Uri Alps and has a height of 3,238 meters (approx. 10,600 ft). From Lucerne, the drive to the Titlis takes about 45-55 minutes.

We started the tour at Engelberg by taking the Gondola up the mountain. Depending on the day, it can be very crowded at the base station as all ski tourist have to take the same gondola. To go up, it took us a total of 90 minutes from base station to the peak. Most of it was waiting time for the next gondola due to the masses of people wanting to go up at the same time. Cost for the ride up can be found here:

https://www.engelberg.ch/en/winter/ski-snowboard/tickets-prices/

Being up on the peak, the view is breathtaking. We were lucky as we had beautiful clear skies with a view going out hundereds of kilometers. We did some skiing which was a lot of fun as there were some snowfalls in the days before our visit.

The trails go from very easy to very advanced and you can ski from the titlis peak at 3,238 meters down to Engelberg at 1,013 meters.

If you get to the area in winter, take the chance and go up the Titlis, even without skiing. It will be a very memorable visit.

Enjoy

Bernd

We decided late 2018 to go on a trip to an area where I spent many vacations with my parents. The Dolomites in Italy. I always liked the area as the Alps are really impressive there with rough and rugged landscape, but still easily accessible in many areas by car or chair lifts or gondolas.

Since we only had a week, we decided to stay in the heart of the Dolomites, in Cortina d’Ampezzo which is world-famous for it’s ski areas in Winter.

As a first trip we headed to the “Tre Cime de Lavaredo” as part of the Sextner Dolomites. We wanted to drive up and take a hike partly around the 3 towers. Unfortunately, the access road to the mountain is now a toll road and since we didn’t want to spend that much money for just a short visit there, we could only see the towers from afar. Either way, they are impressive even from a distance. I remember that 30 years ago, driving up was free, but the increase in Tourist numbers triggered most likely the toll charge.

The second trip was mainly by car as we drove from Cortina over 4 Mountain passes to Castelrotto where we stayed often 40 years ago. The drive itself is the attraction here. The mountains are so impressive and you can get so close, that you’re tempted to stop every few miles to take a photo and enjoy the scenery as you can see in the photos.

Castelrotto has of course changed a lot since 40 years is a long time. But it has kept it’s charme nonetheless. From Castelrotto we wanted tom drive up to the Seiseralm which is the base point for many great hikes in this part of the Dolomites. As time was limited (we had to drive back to Cortina in the afternoon), we didn’t drive up. If you ever get there, pls a night in Castelrotto and spend a day on the Seiseralm. Great scenery and hikes from very easy to challenging available.

The third trip we made was up to the Cinque Torri which are close to Cortina. The weather wasn’t that gear and the mountain was in clouds, but we rode up with the gondola anyway. It turned out, that the mountains are great even in clouds. Some corners were eerily quiet and the clouds gave way to only partt of the path in front of us. Part of the attraction is, that there’re still some old buildings from the 1^st world-war when the fighting in this part of the Dolomites was intense.

The other days we visited 2 of the nicest lakes I have seen:

The Lago di Dobbacio near the town of Toblach with it’s very clear water and the Pragser Wildsee with it’s famous crystal clear green water. Both lakes invite to relax and spend some time there enjoying the mountain scenery.