We ablute, check our clothes drying on our balcony furniture, and meet Darrell and Nora for breaky in the dining room. A waitress both immediate and kind asks what beverage we would like and leaves to make cappuccinos, espressos and tea. Aquamarine blue sky and 76 degrees at 8 a.m. The Bristol couple have let baby Ivy crawl around and drool on the floor, and we start pouring over a map of our immediate Val Gardena to suss out today’s hike.

We select the day-long two-gondola (lift numbers 4 and 5) ride to Seceda, where we take half-a-million photos and tramp on trail 2B to a lookout point named Furcela Pana. Yet again, we won’t try to describe; just look at the photos that don’t do the views justice because the immensity of the distances and weights of the rocks simply cannot be captured in photos compared to the “real thing.”

The trails are beautifully maintained — even the joins of wooden rails are shaved to perfection and joined with sunken stainless steel screws — and, though quite a few other tourists are here, the spaces are so large and encounters with people seldom enough that the hike itself is as much a pleasure as an experience of geological artistry.

We stop at the Firenze Revensburger hut with dozens of polished pine picnic tables under white umbrellas and order grilled sausage with fries to share, Aperol spritz, espressos etc. A stout fellow with a “gnarly roadie” appearance walks by. His black t-shirt reads “Who the fuck is Mick Jagger.” We can’t figure out the intent, so Nora demurely yells, “What’s your t-shirt mean?”

The guy, a German with full sleeves of jailhouse-looking tatts, slowly saunters over and says in slow but almost perfect English, “It’s what Keith Richards said in 1975 when he was pissed that Jagger was acting too high and mighty. Richards had a t-shirt made with the question and gave it to Jagger. It’s become a thing.”

But clearly not one we were hip enough to know.

We have a delightful conversation with the guy, who says he loves America except his best American friend, a 30-year military man retired in Maine, has gone MAGA, so he sadly cannot consider him a friend now or visit him anymore. The conversation trends political from there but NONE of us want to spoil the day’s perfection, so we all agree to cut it short continue our hikes.

Us four amble continuously downhill toward a distant lift (#7), which will take us down to Dosse, a hotel just west of St. Christina, where we will catch a bus back to Ortisei. After Cynthia and I get a Hugo and Negroni at the lift, we sway down the mountainside with Darrell and Nora and meet two incredibly young and funny American army couples with babies about 8 months old at a bus stop that none of us is sure will take us back to Ortisei. They are in an airborne infantry brigade combat team based in Vicenza.

THEY ARE BABIES!!!! No words

Looooong story short, fried by the sun and the length of time it takes us to get the correct bus, we return to our hotel, shower, and make it to dinner where some superb Tiefenbrunner white and Marchesi di Barolo smooth our way through primi — bio-egg from “Pennhof” cooked at 62C with polenta foam and Jerusalem artichoke chips — secondi — classic lasagne Bolognese — and entree — braised roast of veal with gremolada champignons sidling next to mashed potatoes with thyme. Lest I forget: Dessert was Strawberries and apricots au gratin with homemade hazelnut ice cream.

Clearly, food has faded into insignificance on this trip.

Vici! Andiamo!