I only spent a night in the ski resort town of Cortina d’Ampezzo. There wasn’t anything wrong with the place but I intended it to be the starting point of my visit to the Dolomites. I will be driving the whole day exploring the area and will be staying at a different town at the end of the trip. This means, I need to start early enough. It was winter when I visited and there wasn’t any point to get up very early since the sun will not have risen yet at that point. The hotel I was staying at was actually outside the city center so that means I don’t have to drive through the city to get out. The hotel is actually on the road that leads out of town so it was simple enough to pull out and just go.

It promises to be a nice day here, it was cold but not bitterly so. I was actually surprised there isn’t a lot of wind here which might have made my visit unpleasant. While I can see snow on the mountains, there wasn’t much on the road. I think I missed a big snowfall by just a few days and it looks like they have already cleared the roads by the time I got here. I plan to just drive leisurely here since I would like to be able to admire the mountain scenery. One of my first stops here is not even a town, this is what they call a rifigio or a refuge. These are places which provide shelter and basic items to travelers in the Alps. Rifugio Ospitale is a small stop along the way and, honestly, I don’t even know it is still works as a rifugio. I know nothing at all about the origin of the name since it very similar to hospital but I would like to think it means “hospitable”. At the very least, there is old building which is apparently is a restaurant and hotel. Maybe it is operational in the summer when there are more visitors but it doesn’t look occupied at least when I was there.

What was interesting for me was that they had a small lit hut which provides for fresh water. I know that it might not be the best idea to just drink water from some random place but they even have a sign encouraging people take water from it. I never imagined that I would be able to drink Italian spring water like this, but it was clean, cold and very refreshing. I didn’t get sick from it either which is the best thing about it.

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