While I am sitting here on my first day of my 2nd attempt at retirement, I am finally able to reflect on last month’s epic adventures. It started with a road trip from Louisville to Pittsburgh to New Hampshire. It continues on to a short stop in Maine and then down to Cape Cod for a short stop to participate as the bike leg of the Buzzards Bay sprint triathlon. After a long drive back to Kentucky, I had a few days’ rest before heading over to Switzerland with Stephanie and friends for a two-week road trip through Switzerland, Austria and the northern Italian Dolomite region. I stayed an extra week in Milan to visit my college friend, Tony, while the rest of the crew headed back to the US. I worked another four days and have decided to try retirement one more time.
Here are some more pics from NH, Maine, and the Cape:
I’ll start with the trip to NH where I camped at the Passaconaway Campground for a couple of days. It was fortuitous that my friends Jackey and Jarrett were spending a week there. I found out this detail a few days before hitting the road. The primary reason I was heading to New England was to be the bike rider for a sprint team triathlon in Buzzards Bay. That was only going to be an hour-long commitment, so I needed to find some other things to do. The few days in New Hampshire and Maine were perfect. Jarrett and I hiked Hedgehog Mountain, and I quickly learned that biking shape and hiking shape are two entirely different things. It nearly killed me but was good preparation for the Dolomites. I got to experience Jackey’s Dutch baby egg and flour concoction, which was fantastic, played way too much cornhole, and had a wonderful stay in Jarrett and Jackey’s RV…I didn’t want to leave. Shout out to Jackey for recommending N to Tail Korean restaurant in Portland where I had a solo lunch of bibimbap and pork dumplings. I hope this plays stays around for a while. Link below:
Authentic Korean Restaurant in Portland, ME | N To Tail
Another shout out to Poland Provisions in Poland, Maine for a great breakfast and a proper cappuccino:
Poland Provisions | Cafe and General Store
After lunch, I drove down to the cape and stayed in a dive hotel near Bourne and went to the local theater to see The Odyssey to kill some time. I woke early the next day and drove to Horseneck Beach, made sure my recently updated, 25-year-old bike was ready to go. I met Joe and his niece, CJ, in the parking lot and we completed registration and waited around for the race to start. It was a bit of an overcast day, a bit windy with temps in the high 50s to low 60s. A perfect bike riding day. We had a good race and my biking time was fairly close to what I expected. I think I averaged about 19mph, but it could have been better if not for a four-mile stretch of killer headwind I had to deal with. Still very fun and we received a very good BBQ lunch after the race. Right after lunch the rain began, so it was perfect timing as I packed up everything for my trip back to Pittsburgh and eventually Kentucky. It rained the entire drive back.
The trip to the Dolomites was fantastic. Our choice of Zurich as our entry and exit point, not so much. Zurich is an OK city, not much as far as sightseeing (I’m sure others will argue this point), and is super expensive. We knew going in that this entire trip was not going to be cheap…and it wasn’t…lol.
Our first two days were spent in Innsbruck, which turned out to be a great place. We kind of wished we would have made Innsbruck our entry and exit point…or Milan. We didnt have much time in Innsbruck, but we did have enough time to explore the city and the city’s alpine zoo. I’m not an animal person but I even enjoyed it. Big shout out to the NALA individuellhotel in Innsbruck. It’s a funky hotel with a fantastic Sunday brunch and everyday breakfast. I want to go back to Innsbruck just to stay there again:
After Innsbruck, we made our way down the Brenner highway towards Cortina d’Ampezzo (where the 2026 Olympics were). On the way, we planned a stop at Lake Braeis before heading down to our hotel near Cortina. We quickly found that all parking lots close to the lake were full and everyone wanted to give up and head to the hotel. Everyone but me that is. We found that the far parking lot still had some spaces and after some discussion, we decided to stay and take the shuttle bus back to the lake. I think everyone agreed that this was a great decision as the short hike around the lake was spectacular. We even had time for a short detour through the forest to have lunch at Malga Foresta–another easy recommendation:
Afterwards we made our way down to San Vito di Cadore for our three-night stay at the Dolomiti Sport Hotel. We couldn’t find many decent options in Cortina and the Dolomiti Sport Hotel was just about perfect for our stay. The included breakfast was a big bonus. Though I will mention that there aren’t many restaurant options in San Vito.
From this point on, things become a bit of a blur. The Dolomites are overwhelming and it’s difficult for a first timer to keep up with everything. In the Cortina area we hiked Cinque Torri and Tre Cime di Lavaredo. The Cinque Torri hike was on a nice mostly sunny day and the Tre Cime hike was on a colder, very gray day. We couldn’t see the tops of the Tre Cime peaks. Still the Tre Cime hike was one of the highlights…our longest hike at almost 7 miles with a lot of uphill climbing. Stephanie was able to persevere and made it through with some regular rest stops.
After Cortina, we made our way to Ortisei for the 2nd part of our Dolomites trip–another three-night stay. We quickly found out that one of the major expenses traveling in the Dolomites is the cost of the lift tickets that take you to the best areas to hike. We decided to spend $160 each to get the Val Gardena card that allowed us to use most lifts without any additional charges.
In Ortisei, we did the most popular hikes: Seceda, Alpe di Siusi, and Resciesa. Its hard to pick a favorite from the group, but I would say that Resciesa has the least people (almost no one when we went), and if you can climb the short, steep grass field to the edge of the mountain, you will get spectacular 360 views.
One other thing to note is the lunch stops we had at many of the mountain refugios (huts). Most were very good and included much needed beer and wine options. Nothing better than a great lunch with great mountain views. I hope to have time in another post–or I’ll update this post–to go into more details about the refugios.
Our next to last stop was in Verona, Italy. We had a difficult time deciding where to stay after the Dolomites and we settled on Verona. Verona was OK, but I think Milan would have been a better choice…or even Bologna. We ran out of things to do in Verona fairly quickly, but we had a great Airbnb. I think the thing I will most remember about the Verona stop is watching Derek park our large VW van in the underground apartment parking space that was meant for a car the size of a Mini Cooper. He did it, though. It was an equal challenge getting the van out. We decided to find an outside parking space the last night, so we didn’t have to deal with the stress of parking it inside again.
One thing to note is that we scheduled a winery tour outside of Verona which turned out to be one of the trip’s highlights. The tour was at Giuseppe Quintarelli, one of the best Amarone style wine producers in the world. We had a fantastic tour of the entire process including seeing the grape drying process, barreling, and tasting. The tasting was very comprehensive and included some very expensive Amarone options ($1000+ a bottle). Of course, I had to get a couple bottles (not $1000+ but still expensive) and I’m thankful they made it back unscathed in my packed luggage.
I won’t post much about the short stay we had in Zurich to end the trip…other than it was expensive. I’ll try to create a separate post for my solo Milan trip, which turned out to be very good. Since I have been typing for far too long, I’ll just leave you with some pics from Innsbruck and the Dolomites. Thanks for reading!
