Due to the fact of no connection whatsoever yesterday I’m doing the blog entry today:
Our night was disrupted shortly after midnight when the 3 bikers were coming back. Very noisely they did. When I shouted “Ruhe” (not caring whether they understood) they were a bit quieter. 😉
For the rest we slept quite fine and got up early at 6 a.m. We made our own breakfast in the quiet of the morning and headed off at around 7.30. It was already quite warm but there were some clouds in the sky.
Very quickly we reached the path where the AAT continued and hiked through the cool forest at first. It was nice to hike though we could say that the way wasn’t cared for very well. Sometimes it felt like wading through a jungle. And we saw not a single other hiker. The path went up and down for about 5km before we had to hike down 100m and reached a nice swing bridge.
But then on the other side we had to walk up again, of course.
Then we walked over the motorway which was already tunnelled and along the railroads which looked quite pretty with the mountains in the background:
Afterwards we passed a small village from where we had a great view on the mountains:
After crossing the street we were suddenly again on the same highway of bicycle lane we already knew from Valbruna and Tarvisio and hiked there for 3km before we headed upwards on a street which quickly turned into a very nice broad hiking path through the forest.
Following this path we reached the Lago di Fusine inferiore after 5km. The first sight we had of the lake was astonishing: an incredible blue I’ve never seen in a lake where the trees mirrored themselves.
The second sight was discouraging. There were like thousands of Italians at the inn at the lake and its surrounding. The path led along nearly the whole lake with many ups and downs, an rough terrain and too many people coming our way.
We were too happy to leave it behind although the lake itself really is a beauty. The water was quite warm, so no wonder that some people were swimming in it.
But not enough of surrounding lakes. After the inferiore we came to the Lago di Fusine superiore – gladly there weren’t that many people but still…
After all our time in the Mölltal, up on the Millstätter Alpe and the Nockberge this were simply too many people, too much noise, too few calm nature. We just wanted to get up to the Rifugio Zacchi, our accomodation for this night, and be done with people. Little did we know!
At first the path was still rather even and there were only 3km left to our destination but we knew there were still 400m up to hike. Well, we found them on the last 2km. I daresay that the last kilometre was the hardest on the whole trail. It wasn’t really only the path itself which wasn’t so bad in fact – but there were so many people coming down, it was very hot, we were sweating like hell and we didn’t want to see any more Italians today.
So, when we finally reached the Rifugio Zacchi we were horrorstruck. People all around, every inch of table was occupied and that noise was driving me crazy.
We went inside and asked for the room. Of course we knew beforehand it was a large dormitory with more beds (10 in fact!) and although we were still hoping we’d be the only ones, at the end of the day it would turn that it was quite well filled with 7 people, our room of horror.
But ignorance is bliss and at first we enjoyed at simple meal. It wasn’t really very tasty, I mean pasta with a hint of tomatoe sauce and one leaf of basil was a bit funny in the country of pasta but I was hungry and couldn’t care less.
Then at around 6 p.m. we figured that not all of the people were going to leave and that the evening and especially the night in the Rifugio Zacchi were going to be the hardest on the whole trail.
At around 7 p.m. some people started to set up some kind of sound box.
When we went back to our room and tried to find a bit of quiet new people were arriving and storming into our room. Well, gone were the hopeful thoughts for a good night – and man, did we wish for our bikers!
Here some pictures of the Italian version of the AAT information point. We like them better than the Austrian one. 😉
We’ve only one stage left of the circular route of the AAT but after 6 days we can say that if you don’t do this part you don’t miss a lot. Of course, the Monte Lussari was one jewel and we were so glad we slept up there. But for the rest: there are much better days on the AAT with much more astonishing views and much more thrilling paths. Though one thing is sure: the circular route is incredibly well marked!!!
Some figures for today:
- 22km
- 1220m up
- 680m down
- Hiking time: 4h 28m