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Laura Palmeri Hecht

@lp_503

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Our weekend in Nashville was full of art, food, & history! We enjoyed murals in The Gulch and donuts from Five Daughters Bakery. Then we visited Centenial Park with a full scale replica of the Greek Parthenon before walking through the Vanderbilt University campus. Then we wandered through Printer’s Alley before taking a tour of the inside of the Ryman Auditorium. We had to eat some hot chicken from Hattie B’s on Broadway, of course. The next day was a full day of visiting the Country Music Hall of Fame with additional tours of the Hatch Show Print letterpress poster print shop & RCA Studio B where Elvis & Dolly Parton recorded many of their hit songs. We capped off the weekend with delicious smoked meats at Martin’s BBQ. Nashville is quite a vibe, and we had a super fun weekend!

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Hello, Music City! 🤠 This is our first time in Nashville, and we kicked things off with a lovely dinner at @husknashville then a visit to Broadway and the rowdy honky tonk row. We visited the famous @tootsies_orchid_lounge and @robertswesternworld then wandered through downtown on a Friday night taking in the wild scene.

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On our flight route home, we ended up with another long layover in Amsterdam. We took advantage of the 6 hour layover and the fact that Amsterdam Schipol Airport has a train station underneath it, with express trains running every 10 minutes or so that whisk you to Amsterdam Centraal train station in a quick 13 minutes. We then hopped on a tram to the Jordaan neighborhood where we spent a week on our last big trip in 2018. We visited the canal we stayed on, and sat on the canal bench in front of the apartment we stayed at. Then we wandered the Jordaan & canals while we grabbed ice cream & stroopwafels, as well as a stop at a FEBO automat for fried croquettes. It was a short but sweet visit to a city we love. However, it definitely appeared to be slightly worse for wear these days after being inundated with tourists the last couple years.

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We left Salzburg, Austria on our last train ride (a high speed train that went 230kph/145mph) across the country to the capital city of Vienna, our final destination on this trip. Vienna is where the mighty Alps end and you can only see the remaining foothills. This is where the land turns flat in this gateway city to Eastern Europe. Vienna is home to countless museums & palaces, and everywhere you turn you can find majestic old buildings. It is also home to a famous giant ferris wheel originally built in 1897, which has been featured in a few movies. We walked the streets in the center of town, rode the ferris wheel, marveled at the massive St. Stephen’s Cathedral, & ate our last plates of Wienerschnitzel. We began to reflect back on our month in Europe traversing the Alps, and how truly lucky we are.

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After leaving the Dolomites in Italy, we headed north back into Austria to the city of Salzburg. It is a picturesque place full of churches with a massive fortress overlooking the city up on its stone perch above & surrounded by smaller mountains of the Alps. This is where Mozart was born, and also where much of “The Sound of Music” was filmed. We enjoyed a couple of lovely days here walking the old town areas day & night, touring filming locations from the movie, walking the gardens at Mirabell Palace, walking the ramparts & visiting the fortress museum, going inside the massive baroque cathedral, and enjoying awesome views from the rooftop terrace of our hotel across the river from the old town.

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Part 2: Featuring photos of the views from the trail, not of the Tre Cime

After our incredible afternoon at the Seceda Ridge hike we left Ortisei to head deeper into the Dolomites. Our next destination was Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy in the heart of the various Dolomiti parks. Cortina was the host city for the 1956 Winter Olympics & will again host the Winter Olympics alongside Milan in 2026. We planned one final epic hiking trek in the Dolomites at Tre Cime di Lavaredo, and boy did it deliver in spades as one of our favorite adventures of the trip. We hiked from Rifugio Auronzo in a loop around the Tre Cime (Three Peaks). Halfway around, after lunch at the lake below the peaks, we changed our plan to leave the well-traveled hiking trail and head up the massive scree slope to a high-line traverse trail through the rocky terrain just below the base of these impressive rocky mountains. It was a day we will never forget, climbing & scrambling over boulders traversing our way to the saddle on the opposite side of the Tre Cime, then around the backside to complete the loop. The jagged Dolomites mountains stretch far in every single direction, providing unlimited and constantly changing jaw dropping vistas!

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Part 1: Photos featuring the Tre Cime di Lavaredo

After our incredible afternoon at the Seceda Ridge hike we left Ortisei to head deeper into the Dolomites. Our next destination was Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy in the heart of the various Dolomiti parks. Cortina was the host city for the 1956 Winter Olympics & will again host the Winter Olympics alongside Milan in 2026. We planned one final epic hiking trek in the Dolomites at Tre Cime di Lavaredo, and boy did it deliver in spades as one of our favorite adventures of the trip. We hiked from Rifugio Auronzo in a loop around the Tre Cime (Three Peaks). Halfway around, after lunch at the lake below the peaks, we changed our plan leaving the well-traveled hiking trail and headed up the massive scree slope to a high-line traverse trail through the rocky terrain just below the base of these impressive rocky mountains. It was a day we will never forget, climbing & scrambling over boulders traversing our way to the saddle on the opposite side of the Tre Cime, then around the backside to complete the loop. The jagged Dolomites mountains stretch far in every single direction, providing unlimited and constantly changing jaw dropping vistas!

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We left Innsbruck, Austria in a rental car (only for this leg of the trip) to head south into Italy to the rocky Dolomites, the Italian Alps. Our first stop was the town of Ortisei in the Val Gardena region to hike the famous Seceda Ridge. This spot is featured heavily in online hiking content & social media for its striking rocky & jagged ridge protrusions on a cliff underneath pointed peaks. What an incredible welcome to the Dolomites!! We were in awe with jaw-dropping scenery and incredible vistas stretching in every direction from this high ridge perched at 8200’.

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While we were in Innsbruck, Austria we knew we wanted to do a hike nearby, but hadn’t done any prior research. The wonderful Lara Steiner at the hotel Gasthof Badl we stayed with, knew just the perfect hike for us based on some discussion with her, and she knocked the choice out of the park! She recommended the Zirbenweg, which means Stone Pine Trail, a long traverse across multiple small mountains above Innsbruck using gondola rides at each end. This wonderful trail with epic views crosses through rocky terrain with lots of varieties of pine trees & spruce trees. There was even a hut where we grabbed a lunch snack & cold drinks along the way. It was a truly fantastic trek on such a beautiful day!

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After leaving Chur & saying goodbye to Switzerland, we headed east again by train. We travelled through Liechtenstein and into Austria to Innsbruck our next destination in the Tyrolean Alps. We are staying in Hall, just outside of Innsbruck which has a charming old town & is much quieter than the bustling city. We had a great day trip into Innsbruck to see some of the famous sites: the Austrian Imperial Palace, Hofkirche (with the cenotaph empty tomb of Maximillian I), Golden Roof, Stadtturm tower, Annasäule, Maria-Theresien-Straße, & Triumphal Arch.

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Our final stop in Switzerland was the city of Chur (pronounced Koor) near the eastern border with Liechtenstein. This is the oldest town in Switzerland with a 5,000+ year history dating back to 3,500 BC! This city is also where you will find the fourth national language of Switzerland spoken, which is Romansh and is spoken by only a small percentage of the national population. As usual, the aldstadt (old town) is full of charming buildings on cobblestone streets with multiple churches and very old buildings. We wandered around to enjoy the sights before saying goodbye to Switzerland. 🇨🇭

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A short train trip away from our base in Locarno on Lago Maggiore is the larger city of Lugano on its own lake, Lake Lugano. We took a quick day trip to visit Lugano and take the funicular up to Monte Bré for a spectacular bird’s eye view of Lake Lugano. It was so hot here, we sure wish we had time & were prepared to go swimming because it sure would have felt good to jump in those emerald waters!

We had a small issue as we arrived at the train station to return back to Locarno discovering ours & many other trains were canceled due to unexplained reasons (according to the trusty SBB app) & the polizia everywhere. After hearing the news about train attacks in France for the Olympics earlier in the day, there was a brief moment of panic. However, in the end we caught a train after just a short 30 minute delay & were safely on our way. We’re still unsure what happened, but it was quite a scene at the train station. We consider ourselves well-seasoned travelers on the Swiss public transportation systems at this point, and thankfully this has been our only snafu.

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