Dolomites Hiking: Wolkenstein to the Puez Hütte

Our first hike in the Dolomites was to the Puez Hütte. We started in Wolkenstein, took the Dantercepies gondola up to the top, and then walked to Puez. Then, we walked all the way to the bottom of the mountain and back to Wolkenstein. A long hike - 10 miles - with about 600 meters of up and 1300 meters of down. The down wasn't easy either, it was characterized by steep drop-offs and loose stones.

Below are some pictures from the hike. Gorgeous views of the Dolomites.



This is a hut near the top of the gondola.



Here are many pictures of the same mountains (they are called the Sella group of the Dolomites). I couldn't decide which to post, they all look good.



This hike included going up and over several ridges. Below are some pictures from the rather long walk to the hut, looking down valleys and towards other ridges we had to cross before arriving at the hut. Gorgeous scenery, but again, a long hike.



And who can forget Garmisch! He actually made the cut for this trip, since we were driving and he's light enough to carry around on hikes.



This is the Puez Hütte where we stopped for lunch. Martin got a very tiny beer while I rehydrated with an apple schorle. The view from the hut was also spectacular and there were many people lounging on the grass in front of the hut enjoying the view or a brief nap in the sunshine.



Starting the long walk back down into the valley and on to Wolfenstein.



We came from between those two ridges in the center of the photo below. And we're nowhere near being back at the bottom yet.





Finally at the bottom, it was time for some cows and a brief rest before walking back to Wolkenstein through the forest.

St Petersburg Day Three

On our third day in St Petersburg, we realized that we had way too much left to see in and around the city. We ended up not doing any of the day trips or farther-away sites and instead wandering around the summer gardens and climbing St Isaac's cathedral and just wandering through all the streets that we could downtown. So we have to go back to see everything we missed this trip!

We started the morning in the summer gardens. Took a picture of a building along the way (left).



After wandering through all the gardens, we wandered over to St Isaac's cathedral again to climb to the top of it and get a view of the city. Well, first we stopped for lunch at an asian restaurant called King Pong. The food was really good - great place for lunch. Anyway, on the left below is just a street view from our walk to the cathedral, followed by views from the top of the cathedral:



This is the Mariinsky Palace, directly across from the cathedral.



Our poor attempt at a selfie:



After climbing the cathedral we just wandered the streets for awhile. Found some USSR buildings and cars.



Then we found the four lion bridge, which I failed to get a decent picture of without other people in it.



You could see the church of the savior on spilled blood from the four lion bridge:



Later, we had dinner at Gastronomica, which is a restaurant on the 6th floor of a small shopping mall. They serve traditional russian food with a modern twist. The view from here was nice - it was more a view of the residential part of the city than downtown. Martin got borscht again, of course, and I had a "beet cutlet" starter - I have no idea what was in it - followed by a pumpkin and goat cheese pizza that apparently came with raw quail eggs on it but the eggs weren't listed on the english menu. It was quite tasty, once I scraped the raw eggs off of it.



Since it was Saturday night, we explored some streets we were told had good restaurants and bars on them and found a fun little tapas bar where I got a sizable glass of very tasty sangria.



Good thing sangria is in english!



The vodka selection at the grocery store!



We used the metro (subway) a lot on this trip. It was really fun because it's really, really, REALLY deep underground and every time you go to take the subway you have to ride an escalator several minutes underground.



And, finally, just some random street views we took during all of our wanderings.