Italy 2026 - Day 3 - I should have stayed in bed ... but I didn't

Ay, ay, ay ... my legs still hurt a lot. I spent a fitful night and reason told me I needed much longer to heal, but I am here only for today, before I move forward, and I couldn't waste a perfectly good day to play the Tyrolese tourist. I figured I could grab my powerful Cinquecento and wander aimlessly through the valley towns, but at breakfast the napkin had a printed message on it: "What are you doing today?" followed by "You should visit Seceda and enjoy its flower-covered meadows". I took it to be a message from up on high, so I asked at the front desk how to get there. "Just take the bus two stops to Ortisei, go up the escalator, through the tunnel, and you will be in the funicular to Seceda (pronounced se-CHÉH-dah)."

So there I go, and learnt that Seceda is at the head of a valley 1,250 m above Ortisei (that would make it something like 2,516 in elevation). It was a very long ride in a two-stage funicular, and I made sure before going that there would be a path that contoured the valley, to keep elevation changes to a minimum. The ride up gave me a close-up view of a huge cliff formed by Permian sandstones and limestones that gave way to section of laminated Triassic dolostones. Finally!

Up at the top there was a total zoo of tourists, crawling like ants all over the place. I joined the ant trail to reach a nearby promontory where I could get a good view of the valley below, and pretty soon learnt that although I can go uphill with a certain ease, any gentle downhill slope forced me to walk like a tottering old man (I got a few compliments for going out walking "in your condition" ... grrr!).

There are a few cabins scattered through the grass slopes of the high valley, all covered with mountain flowers, but the show stopper were the craggy peaks of SAS Rigais (3,025 m) and La Gran Furchéta (2,924 m). I chose a path that looked flat enough and would bring me to the base of the dolomite peaks, but nothing is really flat in this high country and every uphill was a reminder of the sage dictum that "anything that goes up must come down", and every downhill was pure agony, particularly when cheerful Japanese tourist were running up and down the gentle inclines.

Finally, I made it to the start of the rocks, and touched ceremonially a lumpy outcrop of dolostone that remained mute about its origin. Later, at the local museum, I learnt that a basement of schists was covered by Permian lavas and pyroclastic flows erupted as Pangea was coming together, and that during the late Permian and most of the Triassic the dolostones were deposited in an arm of the Tethys ocean. Sea level fluctuated during the Triassic, with the region of Sud Tyrol representing a subtidal and shallow shelf environment, where numerous organisms died to leave their skeletons behind. The most famous of these fossils is a Triassic ichthyosaurus, but the invertebrate fossils are legion.

I tried to breathe as much of the ambiance of the high mountains as possible, and had I not been afraid of not being able to get up I would have gladly laid down among the flowers and consider myself the luckiest man on Earth. But I was afraid I couldn't get up, so instead I spent my time trying not to be trampled by tourists.

Eventually I got down, by mid-afternoon, and got a little walk through the town of Ortisei, which in addition to a museum has all the quaint shops that are to be expected in a major tourist destination. I am very glad that the hotel gave me the bus pass, because trying to park the car in the narrow streets of the town would have been both difficult and very expensive.