St. Ulrich to Trieste, Day 1 - Seceda to Colfosco

Sunday June 21, Day 1: Seceda to Colfosco

Our long hike of 2026 began atop Seceda, which meant catching an early morning bus to St. Ulrich, and then riding the Seilbahn up. The Seilbahn is in two stages: an 8-person gondola from St. Ulrich, followed by a 62-person gondola at the halfway point. High tourist season had already begun, so were packed in with other tourists in the second lift--a convenient thing for acrophobes.

Here we are on Seceda before Day 1 kicked our butts. 

The National Park makes an effort to keep people on designated trails. Once the temporary railings end, folks sprawl out in the meadows.

For the first few miles of our hike, we hiked in single and double file with dozens of other hikers. It's a wonder that I snagged photos without lots of people in them. 

Langkofel and Plattkofel

I had to be right quick to get this shot between Wanderer/innen

The lure of Der Wanderer ueber dem Nebelmeer is strong for all of us camera-toting Caspar David Friedrichs. Note that the Wanderin standing on the rock in the photo below had to be photographed in multiple poses by her two friends. Then she traded places with one of the friends for a second round of photos. Then that friend traded places with the third friend for a third round of photos. Meanwhile, a long line had formed of other hikers who similarly wanted to take photos. It was a wanderer-eat-wanderer spot on the trail.

Eventually, we hiked far enough down the trail, and far enough from the Seilbahn station, that the day-hiking crowds trickled off. For the rest of the day, we encountered only long-distance hikers, many of whom were hiking the Alta Via 2.

Adjusting bootlaces in privacy

As we were in the Dolomites, I felt it necessary to admire a chunk of dolomite. The powdered dolomite in my glaze-ingredients cabinet in our basement back home is presumably similar in chemical content.

This first day of hiking coincided with E's 25th birthday. We waited until the evening to call him, since there was a 6-hour time difference. E has honed the skill of throwing rocks in the air and photographing them looking like spaceships. During an afternoon break, I tossed a few rocks in his honor, but being less skilled with aim, was lucky that I was wearing a protective hat when one of them hit me on the head. I eventually got a satisfactory photo (although the rock is out of focus). In the background whence we came, Geislergruppe.

Happy bday, E!

From there, it was a long hike up to the pass. Resilient wildflowers found places to send down roots in the scree.

At the top of the scree field, we reached the saddle and had an expansive view to the east.

The trail then followed the ridge around the cirque. Here's the first glimpse toward the upcoming death-defying thrill ride for acrophobes. I have no photos of the scariest bits, because I was too busy trying to be brave, but they involved precipitous cliffs and stainless steel cables.

 

Carly the Travel Chicken emerged from the backpack at the apex, where the narrow trail expanded into a comfortingly wide meadow. Another hiker arrived soon thereafter. She was hiking half of the Alta Via 2 solo, and was modeling both bravery and empowerment. 

S's microfiber towel makes a fine superhero cape.

I took this photo for the geology in the background, where you can see the angled layers of former ocean floor now high in the Alps.

Once we rounded this cirque...

 

...the terrain flattened out and the acrophobe could finally relax. 

Looking toward Val Lungo

Pair o' marmots...

Val Lungo...

Throughout our hike, we repeatedly encountered built-in steps designed for--or rather, by--people taller than 5'6".  

From one cirque to the next... 

Turn your audio on to hear the call of the marmots.

Despite hundreds of miles hiking in the Alps, this was the first and only time we saw Edelweiss in the wild, above Colfosco.

Audio on to hear the adorable baby goats above Colfosco, accompanied by a sheep who thought the goats were way more fun to hang out with than the sheep. 

Ta da! 11.5 of the day's 13.25 miles, 2,150' up, 4,750' down (oof).

St. Ulrich to Trieste, Day 0 - Brixen / Bressanone

And away we go! 

Saturday June 20: Day 0. Turns out that the farther you section-hike, the longer it takes to travel back to the end point / starting point for the next section-hike. 

We took an early train from Steinebach to Munich Hbf and another early train to Brixen / Bressanone, and had a whole afternoon to be tourists once we arrived. This was a treat, since the last time we were in Brixen, we were just passing through.

Speaking of passing through, in the winter of 1550-51, an elephant named Soliman stayed in Brixen for two weeks on his way from Genoa to Vienna. The elephant was a gift from Portugal's King John III to Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria.

Had Soliman arrived 75-80 years earlier, perhaps the oliphant / pferdefant frescoes in Brixen's cathedral cloister and on the wall of tiny St. Nikolaus in nearby Klerant would have looked more like elephants.

S and I had been so enamored of the horse-like elephant fresco in Klerant when we hiked through two years ago, that we planned to revisit it this summer. Discussing this plan with S's brother and SIL over dinner before our trip, we searched online for information about the frescoes' painter, and thereby learned Mesiter Leonhard of Brixen, or his school, had painted another elephant a few years earlier in Brixen. Both frescoes were painted elephant-unseen--because getting a painter from Brixen to Ceylon, or an elephant from Ceylon to Brixen, took more time, effort, and money than Leonhard had at his disposal. This was when we also learned about Soliman, the real elephant who arrived 75 years later and had absolutely nothing to do with the frescoes.

We passed the Dom on our way from the train station to our hotel, so we entered the cloister,...

...passed beneath the winged lion (presumably also painted sight unseen)...

...and found the famous elephant / oliphant / Pferdefant. Beneath the elephant is Eleazar Avaran, who has just stabbed or is about to stab the noble beast, who in turn is about to die, crushing Eleazar (1 Maccabees 6:43-46).

Brixen cathedral cloister Pferdefant, ca. 1470

Across the street from our hotel, we encountered another lion, warning passersby "Ich bin ein schröcklich Leu" ("I am a fearsome lion"). (The building dates from the 15th c., but the lion was added ~1900.)

Schröcklich!

We were far too early to check in, so we dropped off our backpacks and went in search of lunch. 

As is often the way in South Tyrol, our hotel booking included a local mass-transit and museum-discount card. We still had some time to kill after lunch, so we swung by the nearby Hofburg Museum (free with the card). We soon figured out it was a diocesan museum in the palace that served as the bishop's residence from the mid-13th to early-19th centuries. 

I did not expect to enjoy the huge collection--three centuries worth--of Krippen ("cribs," i.e. nativity scenes), but they went well beyond stable scenes to include, e.g., the Slaughter of the Innocents... 

...and a scene with hyenas and PORCUPINES.

I was also fond of this ca. 1430 sculpture of Mary and Elizabeth. The way Mary holds wimpled Elizabeth's neck made me imagine what a 15th-c. childbirth preparation class might have looked like. Mary: "You're doing great! You're halfway through this contraction!" Elizabeth: "How can you know I'm halfway through until the contraction is over?" Mary: "I am highly favored!"

Good luck, gals

The Brixen card also included a free round trip ride on the not-quite-nearby Seilbahn up to Mount Plose (8,406'; the Seilbahn drops you off at 6,725'). After checking into our hotel, we caught a bus to the Talstation (7 road-km and 500 m elevation gain above Brixen, just past the village of St. Andrea), and headed up Plose for a preview of the Geislergruppe, where we'd start hiking the next day. 

To the right: the Geislergruppe

Did I mention that it was stinking hot in Brixen? It was noticeably cooler on Plose. FBOFW, we didn't stay long. We wanted both to hike and to revisit Klerant, so we took the Seilbahn back down to St. Andrea and headed on foot toward Klerant.

On the way, we passed through the hamlet Mellaun / Meluno, famous for yet another small church painted (in 1464) by the school of Meister Leonhard. No elephants here.

And then Klerant. Hello, old friend.

We were also happy to see the whale again.

From Klerant, we headed down, down, down to Brixen.

After dinner, Brixen treated us to a lightning storm. 

Meißen

On our last day in Sachsen, S and I spent the morning hiking a loop from Rathen to the Wolfsschlucht. On the train back, it occurred to me that I could continue past the Dresden train station all the way to Meißen. 

S and I had visited Meißen with E in 2012, and all I could remember about it was that I wasn't a fan of  factory-made slip-cast porcelain. But our friend Tobi had raved about what a life-saver the town had been during the pandemic--an easy train ride away, to a scenic place where he and his toddler could enjoy some outdoor adventures. I decided to give Meißen another try.

This time I skipped the porcelain factory, and aimed for the Altstadt.

Yeah, no.

As is my truffle-hunting tendency, I peeked inside the Frauenkirche, much modernized since its 1205 CE founding. My favorite item was this painting of Adam and Eve, showing that Jesus had to die because Adam and Eve listened to a snake.

I then headed uphill, past roof-top stork decor...

That's the Frauenkirche down below...

...past a Medieval gate...

...up above the rooftops...

...to Albrechtsburg Castle...

...and the Dom.

The entrance to the Dom museum was around back...

...and when I went in to purchase a ticket, the cashier said, "would you like to include the 3pm Dom Tour with that for 11 Euros total?" And I said sure.

Then I went into the cathedral to wait for the tour guide, who had been hanging out next to the cashier. She came in and said we'd wait another 5 minutes for the other ticket-holders--who turned out to number ZERO--and then we headed up into the first of the two towers for my private tour. Incredible. 

As is typical in Germany when you make an effort to speak German, the tour guide complimented my "excellent" grammar-error-ridden language skills, and I managed to convey that I had a fear of heights. The tour was thus perfectly tailored to an acrophobe who understood most of what the guide was saying and who was able to compliment the impressive architecture and views all the way up to the penultimate level ("we can skip the last set of stairs," said the guide; "the views are just as good here, and it isn't as exposed").  

We had views both inside...

...and out.

During WWII, the bells were removed--ostensibly for melting down into weapons, but safely stored instead due to their historical significance. 

We went as high as the level above the bells, then headed all the way back down.

The ground floor of the Dom was similarly impressive...

I think I took this photo for the date on the wall: 1291...

Yeah, no...

Here's Jesus on a rainbow. People surely saw rainbows before trying to paint them, but it took several hundred years to figure out how to paint them.

(Even Caspar David Friedrich didn't get them right. A friend suggests the problem wasn't understanding what rainbows look like, but having pigments with which to conceptually distinguish more than rainbow three colors. But even the lighting is off in Friedrich's painting, and he was a master of gilded skies...)

Gebirgslandschaft mit Regenbogen, ca. 1809-10 

Back to the Meißen Dom...

Eek

A view through the museum window's antique glass

13th-c. dog head

After visiting the Dom, I walked through the courtyard,...

...and down the hill behind the castle to the train station--an excellent way to spend an afternoon!