Selina Xu

I read this quote on Instagram the other day, which perfectly encapsulates my vacation. Rephrasing:

How do I explain that my idea of a relaxing holiday is driving to the middle of nowhere, walking uphill for hours, taking 100 photos of the same mountain, getting emotionally attached to a random goat, holding the need to pee, conquering my fear of heights, gobbling lunch in haste at remote huts, walking all the way back down with my knees destroyed and immediately asking “When can we do this again?” (Credit: @sinchiquita.adventures)

I’m no devout lover of the outdoors. I assiduously avoid UV, hate bugs and dirt, dislike carrying heavy bags, and grew up a city girl through and through. Over the past two years, however, courtesy of my boyfriend, I’ve dipped my toe in hiking with day trips to upstate New York and deep Jersey. The scenery does often feel like a reprieve from Manhattan’s concrete and steel, but the joy is more from physical exertion and discovering cute Main Streets.

The Dolomites are on a whole other level. Every few minutes, panting, I’d look up from the trail and be gobsmacked by the views. Wild horses. Grazing cows with bells around their neck. A random goat. Green plains, jagged ridges, steep valleys, snow-capped mountains, carpets of dark forests on slopes, crisp blue skies, the sun warm and cold. Even the brown huts along the way served piping hot pasta a 100x better than New York’s Nolita. Drinking elderflower juice against stark rocky peaks at a refuge point 2,256 meters above sea level, I felt like a hobbit mid-journey in The Lord of the Rings.

I’d never seen nature’s beauty this clear and untainted. So intense in person that it felt unreal. Like stepping into a naturalist painting, a panoramic shot in a movie. After twenty-five odd years of being nature-agnostic, I finally get it.

I highly recommend our itinerary for hikers who want insane views and moderate to hard exertion:

• Hike 1: Cable car from Col Raiser, walk through idyllic pastures, hike to Seceda (ostensibly the real-life inspiration for the mountain emoji ⛰️), then back to the bottom of the valley by foot. Lots of green meadows, huts, and more touristy. Basically picture-book kind of lush alpine valley.

• Hike 2: Ski lifts up to Monte Seura, hike up to Rifugio Vicenza, then down back to Monte Pana by foot. Less touristy, only one pit stop all the way up in the heart of the mountain (Rifugio Vicenza), more sheer vertical cliffs and pale limestone peaks that look like claws.

Our base for four nights was Hotel Cendavaves, up on Monte Pana, about a five-minute drive from Santa Cristina (a little ski town neighboring Ortisei). The hotel was secluded, quiet, and had incredible views of Sassolungo from the room and of the Odles mountain range from the breakfast parlor.

When we departed from the Dolomites and headed for Venice, I felt immediately bereft. If you’d asked me before the trip, I would’ve wagered myself liking Venice over the Dolomites. Venice had art, history, unique city infrastructure—all things I’m a sucker for. But in Venice, I found its beauty faded, like a facsimile of what it once was. The shops selling Murano glass and Venetian masks, the gondolas, the cicchetti eateries, even the famed gelato spots, all felt like a fraying simulacrum.

Gazing up at the elaborate Veronese ceiling paintings celebrating the Republic and the virtuous Doge, it’s hard not to notice how much Venice’s power has elapsed. Venice is no longer a city that exists as a refuge (from Hun invaders), a naval superpower, a hyper-wealthy port that’s at the heart of international trade, the seat of a sprawling empire. Today it feels primarily maintained for tourist consumption.

But still vestiges of its magnificent cultural power spills over to touch and lift up contemporary art. Wandering through Gallerie dell’Accademia, I see performance artist Marina Abramovic’s Pietà (1983) hang opposite Titian’s unfinished Pietà (1575–76). A call and response across five centuries. Elsewhere, blocks of crystals from Abramovic’s solo exhibition adorn Renaissance galleries full of oil and marble.

In bed, on the second floor of an old Venetian building, I try reading Andrew Sean Greer’s Villa Coco and give up. I read Liz Moore’s The God of the Woods instead.