Today we went to Forcella del Sassolungo to try the small cable cars, which are nicknamed “coffin cable cars.”
We were staying at a hotel in Nova Levante, so getting there meant quite a lot of driving through the mountains. The road was beautiful, especially on the way to Canazei. I turned on my camera and started recording the winding roads.
When we finally reached the top, I thought I had recorded enough, so I turned it off.
And of course, that was exactly when Sellaronda appeared in front of us.
Three huge peaks suddenly opened up in front of us, with the little cable cars going up from below to the mountain pass. I immediately wished I had kept the camera running for a little longer.
We checked the map and decided to take the cable car up first and then walk back down around the mountain.
The cable car was quite an experience too. The cabins are really small, so getting in and out is almost part of the fun. I got into one first, and my partner got into the next one. Everything happened pretty quickly.
Halfway up, we could see people hiking up the mountain on a zigzagging trail.
I had thought that trail would be really difficult. But looking at them, I started to wonder if maybe it wasn’t as bad as I had imagined.
After getting off at the upper station, we started walking down. The landscape was very rocky and almost barren in some places. We passed quite a few people, including some who were already quite old but still looked surprisingly energetic.
A little further down, the trail split into two directions. It wasn’t immediately clear which way we should go. The trail on the left was more exposed to the sun, while the one on the right looked a bit easier, so we went right.
After walking for a while, I noticed some familiar-looking peaks in the distance. They reminded me of the mountains I had seen around Seceda and St. Maddalena on previous trips.
It was a bit like putting another piece into a puzzle.
I had seen those mountains from other places before, and now I was seeing them from a completely different direction.
By that point, though, I was also getting tired.
The trail wasn’t as easy as it had looked from the cable car. There were quite a lot of ups and downs, and the loose rocks made some parts surprisingly slippery.
At the beginning, we were talking about the mountains and the views.
After walking for a while, our conversation slowly became much more practical:
What should we eat for dinner tonight?