Back to Italy...

After just a couple of hours of sleep the alarm went off way too early on the 19th of February. Normally I have to get up early to get to work, but 4 o'clock is a wee bit too early for me. After packing the last stuff in our backpacks, checking the skies and the skibox, we headed for Amsterdam to pick up our travel companions. After a quick stop at Olly's place we drove to Zeeburg to pick up the next passenger. We stuffed everything in the back of the car and before seven we were on our way to Innsbruck, where we were going to stop for the night and meet up with the last person who was going to join our group.

The journey to Austria was not too bad, a couple of traffic jams in Germany. Unbelieveble how many Dutchies were heading for the Alps. It looked like the Dutch had taken over Germany for once, so many Dutch license plates. Just before Innsbruck we received a phone call from the travel agent, letting us know that the Passo Gardena had been closed due to heavy snowfall. It meant that we had to do a little detour the next morning to get to Rifugio Frara.

Around 5 pm we arrived at the hotel in Innsbruck, checked the route for the next morning and went out for a meal at Dollinger, a hotel we had stayed at a couple of years before. I did not have much of an appetite, because I had snacked on too much "bad" stuff on the journey. And my back was killing me for me being stuck in the car for so many hours. After the meal we went back to the hotel and went straight to bed to catch up with some seriously needed sleep.