In the last post, I walked from Rifugio Auronzo to Rifugio Locatelli. After eating an early lunch, I explored the area around the rifugio first before continuing the hike. There were a couple of mountain pools nearby, as well as another church.
The next part of the walk headed down into the valley below, so I took one last look at the Tre Cime and made my way down.
While I was walking down to the valley, I could distinctly hear the sound of bells. They got louder and louder and then I saw the culprits - cows grazing! They all had these large bells around their neck and the sound it made while they were eating the grass was just so pretty. It was really peaceful and calming and blocked out the noise of people chattering while they walked.
The cows didn't seem to mind the people walking around among them - they are probably so used to it. They just got on with the business of eating the grass.
I started walking up the path. It flattened out at the top and headed towards yet another rifugio! It was rocky but quite an easy path to walk up, and brought me back into sight of the Three Peaks again! There was also someone camping down near a pond, though it's not actually allowed. People do, but if I were them I would have packed up a couple of hours ago, as the path was busy and they were pretty visible.
The path eventually curled away to the left to go around the Three Peaks and complete the circular route. There were some amazing rock formations again to the right - the landscape went back to looking like something out of Mordor, with spiky, dark-coloured rocks.
One of my few regrets from this trip, however, is not to have spent longer in the mountains. Once I'd finished the walk, I got back to my camper and drove back down again. I did sit there trying to think of what to do next but all the routes into the mountains started from the path I had just been on. It seemed like a waste to have spent €30 on access and to have left within several hours. The reason was, however, that while the paths were marked for where they went, I only knew of the 101 route that I completed and hadn't looked into any other routes. I should have done some more research and found a longer path but I just hadn't prepared enough. Plus, there were so many amazing places around that area and I only had a limited time. It's somewhere that I would definitely go back to, as you can fly into several airports near there and hire a car. But that's for another day.... I would highly recommend this walk though: it had a bit of everything, wasn't too long or too strenuous, and the views were A+!