I left the Tre Cime park a little before 2pm and drove about 45 mins to my next destination, a lake in the South Tyrol region called Dürrensee. This lake is one that is so clear that it reflects the mountains behind it, but when I went, the mirror-like quality was foiled both by the wind and by kids playing in the lake - who could blame them though, it was a beautiful spot. I can't imagine the lake was particularly warm though...

I walked the track that went right around the lake, through the thick white mud that made up the shore edge and marvelled at the beautiful opaque blue colour of the lake.

The next stop for the day was a place called Niederdorf, called Villabassa in Italian. Around these parts, most people spoke German, with some Italian. Signs were in a mixture of languages, sometimes with English but mostly just German then Italian. Place names were mostly German but had Italian ones. It was truly weird.

I got to Niederdorf and parked the camper in a free parking area - the village wasn't particularly touristy so there were plenty of parking spots. I couldn't quite remember why it had been on my map... there was a reason, I thought it might have been a church, but I couldn't work out what it was. I poked around the church in town, that wasn't it. Then I had a look through the town to see if anything rang a bell... no. It was all pretty though so I didn't mind!

I resorted to Google Maps and found what I was after, walking about 1km out of the town to a church sitting in the middle of a field. It was so beautiful. There were two old people wandering around the church - I think they were foraging for mushrooms, but they were a bit far off and I couldn't quite see them to be really sure.

I went for a walk through the long grass of a sports field nearby (I don't think anyone had used it in a while) to get some photos of the church then went in to have a closer look. It was lovely.

You couldn't actually go inside the church which was a bit of a bummer, so I headed back to the village.

It was about 4:30pm when I got back to the camper. I sat there for a while trying to decide what to do. My next stop was not too far away, but I'd wanted to get there early in the morning away from the tourist crowd. I made a decision - I would go there, have a look around, and free camp in the parking lot overnight so I was there for sunrise. It was a bold plan, and I drove less than half an hour there. The parking lot I chose wasn't manned, meaning I didn't have to pay for it. I parked in a good spot for camping, then walked to Lago di Braies / Pragser Wildsee to have a look. And I will continue on the next post, because it was so pretty that it deserves a post all of its own!