Our time in the Dolomites kicked off our nine day trip to Northern Italy. Escaping to the mountains has become more important to us with each year we continue to live in a city. It is always a welcomed and needed—to slow down, unwind, and reflect. We enjoyed exploring a few of the towns—Kastelruth and Brixen—in between hiking up around the Seiser Alm. The rolling hills and wild flowers of the high alpine meadow added to the beauty of the landscape with the rock formations and mountains that makes this area famous. All together, it felt like the perfect June adventure. You can't seem to go wrong with Italy!

Over the last few summers, we have really appreciated time in the Alps to reconnect with nature, breathe fresh air, and hike. This time around we shipped off to the Austrian-flavored province of South Tyrol in Italy; South Tyrol was previously part of Austria but annexed by Italy in the aftermath of WWI. (Note that the area is bi—and in some areas, tri—lingual. Most place names have German and Italian versions. We will mostly refer to the German names.) The Dolomites are a relatively unknown and inexpensive corner of the Alps, popular mostly with Italians, Austrians, and Germans and served as our home base for the first four nights of our trip.