Hiking the Dolomites: Lago di Braies, Tre Cime di Lavaredo, & Lago di Sorapis | Italy Day 1

if we had to leave tomorrow for some reason we would be like satisfied like we've seen so much beautiful stuff this morning alone it's just we can't stop smiling [Music] ciao from Italy 30 hours ago we left Austin for a 2-week Italian adventure [Music] we had a short layover in London and it's a lounge outfit [Music] we then flew into Venice and had a two-hour nightmare getting our rental car before finally driving to the Dolomites [Music] which is where we are now and we're gonna spend two days here before heading to Venice matera Positano Rome Florence so many cities we are so excited to kick off the trip and share it all with you guys so excited so unfortunately the weather doesn't look awesome for our time here in the Dolomites there's a lot of rain clothes and lightning bolts in the forecast but this morning and most of today is supposed to be pretty nice so we're gonna hit up three scenic areas and hopefully see as much as we can before the weather rolls in yeah and we are kicking it off with the sunrise at lago de bryce disclaimer i'm gonna give these italian names that full go but they're kind of tough we're gonna try our best but we can't make any promises that they're accurate so we are sorry in advance [Music] come on [Music] this lake is in Seine I feel look at it here in my eye we walked up because it is just jaw-droppingly beautiful and it's becoming extremely popular I've been seeing a lot on Instagram it's definitely more popular spot but for good reason it is stunning and this morning it's not even really that busy the parking was super easy we just walked right up to it and it's just like BAM right in your day so I think the reason it's so popular is because it's so easy to access there's a parking lot it's at there's a hotel right here on the water which would be amazing to stay at so they have parking lots you can park out you do have to pay I think you get one hour for free though but you basically just Park and walk right up so I think that makes it really easy for people of all ages and abilities to come check out this lake it is beautiful we saw maybe like six people so far if you actually like walked past it's really quiet this morning and it's a beautiful morning I don't know boats that are just like perfectly lined out on the water yeah if you've ever been to Banff it gives this guy like major Banff I then like if you look at the mountains it's like reminds me of Yosemite mountains yeah a cross between those two awesome places so it's unreal I'm I'm completely in awe yeah [Music] one other thing about this lake is that there's a trail that goes around the lake or at least partially around the lake I overheard someone saying it's about three miles but I'm not totally sure I heard it takes about like an hour hour and a half to go around but unfortunately we don't have the time because we're trying to visit other spots today yeah so depending on how much time you have you can just walk right up to the main view point or if you want to make it more of an activity and and I think you can rent these row boats it's not open right now so that would be super fun entirely yeah so we have an hour drive to our next stop but honestly the drives here are so awesome that I would sit in the car for forever yeah driving here is it's just so much fun though the roads are so windy and the scenery is just freakin unreal yeah you also drive through so many cute little towns like villages just like the cutest buildings like Oh last night we were driving here from Venice we drove through so many cute places and we wish we had time to stop but we were kind of on a time crunch because our Airbnb hosts waited up until we got there and it was like 11:00 p.m. so yeah driving here is just incredible one thing to know though if you want to drive here is you have to get an international driver's permit so Adam you got that triple and I went to triple-a and you show them like your regular driver's license you fill out a little form it was only twenty US dollars so it was easy process pretty cheap so yeah and then get to show that when you rent to a car and then you know if you were to get pulled over or anything you need to have that so that's one thing that we didn't know but our friend told us so without that we become screwed [Music] [Music] all right we need to Tracy Mehdi Lavaredo or at least I think I said hey practicing it is a 10-kilometer so around six mile loop hike around these things called a tre team a which are basically which means three pillars so we haven't seen them yet but they look awesome for what I've seen no line yeah so when you pull up to the park there's a little Hut with the guy in there he's gonna ask you for 30 euros which is the toll to enter to drive up the road you pay you take a ticket drive up the long windy road up to the parking lot that was plenty of parking when we got here and as soon as you step out of the cars just like boom boom so 30 euros may seem like a lot to come go on a hike but the way we think about it is like in the US and you go to a national park it's usually $30 a car per day so it's pretty comparable and I mean like Adam said just you know parking here it's like mind-blowing Lee beautiful it's totally worth every every penny so we keep saying that like if we had to leave tomorrow for some reason we would be like satisfied like we've seen so much beautiful stuff this morning alone it's just we can't stop smiling we can't stop talking about how awesome it is we're gonna be a broken record for sure but yeah this is just unreal [Music] so one of the really cool things about hiking in the Dolomites is they have these things called refugee O's which are basically they're usually a cafe or they have coffee and you can also stay there so it's really great you're backpacking so we're at our first one well technically we started at once we're at the second one it's Refugio lavato and so we got to macchiatos and then we got this apple cake thing which looks really good disclaimer I normally don't eat gluten but I've heard a rumor that if you don't have celiac you can eat gluten in Italy and not feel sick and same with dairy so I'm going for it I have some special pills from my doctor and we're just gonna see how it goes so I feel bad I'll stop but in case you're like why is she eating so much gluten [Music] [Music] like it's incredible there are just so many views like all around I picked the trade she made it'd be like the main attraction but honestly they know he's around or like equally as beautiful yeah that's awesome and they say this trail takes like three and a half hours but I have a feeling it'll take us longer because we cannot stop stopping every ten steps feel like oh crap I want to take this photo man look at this view yeah yeah we're not being as efficient but that's okay it's a beautiful day we're soaking it up [Music] [Music] so we just left the second refugio and come down this windy hill and we're down in the bottom of this valley here and it might not look it might look deceiving on camera but all the way back up there whoever wrote on their blog this wasn't that hard was Wednesday it's like super challenging it's just there are some hard parts I wouldn't say it's easy we just finished the hike the trade team a tre team a stretchy May oh man epic that was an epic hike yeah there was a worker work Jeff but yeah totally work is warm out now and the Sun is out and yeah pretty uphill at times but oh my gosh what an awesome hike the mountains here just unreal there they're like so jagged and I love jagged mountains I tend to like the ones that are really like mountains had a really rocky looking and the mountains here like that and it's just incredible and you know we didn't think it was that busy to be on their own no no I heard it would be a nightmare with like tour buses and stuff and there are a few buses parks now but we started around 8:00 a.m. yeah and I think it's noon no no yeah so took us four hours so just a little bit over the three and a half that they say makes sense we stopped a lot but they are a lot of cars in the parking lot but with me we just didn't see that many people yeah there's nothing like stops of the refugium and we'll keep going I think people spread out a lot so don't let the crowd scare you away and don't like that 30 euro scare you I either because I would pay like a hundred euros it's incredible we are now gonna head 30 minutes down the road to our final hike of the day and I'm really excited for this one and our final hike of the day is lago de sora piece which is a seven mile hike or so and 650 meters of elevation gain I know miles and meters don't go together but I forget their counterparts so that's what we're going with but should be a beautiful hike it's one of those like Gatorade blue lakes or it's supposed to be and those are that'll be cool yeah the parking situation is pretty limited although it's free the parking lot is small but there's extra parking on the on the street they're not too far out so yeah we found a spot and I guess one other thing to note that we just learned is that there are two trail heads or there's multiple ways to get to the loop so I think I intended for us to start in a different area but Google Maps brought us here so looks like we can get there so here we are it'll work out it may just not be the same route that I had planned yeah this trail trying to tease us it started out as like a flat Forest Service type Road and then you went BAM I'm exhausted 600 meters is a deceiving number I don't forgot that you like multiply it by 3 something to get feet and we're hiking at much of the elevation but definitely higher than what we're used to yeah we're not sure how far along we are hopefully over halfway yeah we need we needed more water to bring more water yeah we're struggling right now to be honest it's the hottest part of the day probably out of water I'm praying and hoping that they have water at their refugio at the top if not we may just stay at the lake forever yeah it's ok once we get to the top it's gonna be worth it you totally forget how much we hate life right now and we're gonna love it it's gonna be beautiful just gotta get there first yeah breathe I've never been so happy you will never ever run out of water again don't be like us act like five times we're hard everything need oh sorry we got a bit negative there for a second we try to be positive but sometimes it's hard yeah I feel a hundred times better now they've got water sit there for a little bit so what we haven't even seen the lake so our moods are gonna get even better let's go check it out [Music] so there's a couple things that you should know about this trail so we're researching it we heard about two trails to get to this lake 215 and 216 so when we showed up today and we were reading the map of the trailhead we were at it said 217 or like oh we haven't heard of that one before and now we know why I I can't prove it like it's not this isn't a fact this is my very strong opinion but I'm convinced that we were on the harder of the two I kept hearing don't take 216 it's harder than 215 but I think 270 is the hardest and I mean we didn't really see many people on the trail I mean we saw like a handful but we got down to the lake and there's a ton of people here so and it's including like really small children that I mean if they could do the trail we did I am extremely impressed they've made a claim kind of like use our hands at points right you're scrambling yeah so I don't know I this trail was really hard so if you're gonna do this hike I would highly recommend making sure you go to the 215 trailer yeah one perfect thing though was that was the weather it was awesome it was perfect the forecast was calling for thunderstorms and it was perfect the whole time it's gorgeous it was it was warm and sunny and nice breeze right now yeah so big our plan was to do everything we did today tomorrow and do stuff more in town the town we're staying at today but we saw the weather forecast today was like gonna be nice most of the day then storms and tomorrow was so sweet like rainy and storms so we switched in I'm so glad we did because although we think it much sleep last night and getting out for sunder this was a very brutal after all of our traveling you know we've had the best weather today and it's just an absolutely perfect day and so we're gonna cross our fingers Tamara's not as bad as it seems these are still some really cool stuff we want to do but you know honestly we've seen three of the most beautiful places we've ever been in our entire life today in one day and so it's just absolutely mind-blowing it's seriously bent and like the best day ever even with the little hiccups with that okay we're bout to head back down we have two full water bottles but those songs that we're good on water we're feeling more upbeat and excited [Music] and an hour and a half later we made it back to the car we beat our time going up so that is awesome and we are pooped what a day it was a beautiful and awesome and such a fun day but man we are absolutely exhausted between flying from Austin to Italy gained maybe like six hours of slick real sleet total over the last two days and hiking like 15 miles today we are just like completely wiped out for sure but tomorrow should be a lot of fun because we're finally gonna get to check out the area that we're staying in we're gonna head up to a mountainous area and then we'll head into town and we heard that there's a festival going on so it should be pretty cool I'm excited but now we got to get some rest so we can actually have a fun day tomorrow YZ good night what you're doing I'm trying to learn like the local Italian bathroom tactics I don't know how to use up a day we made it to Trey yeah we made it to day you