Day 19: Belluno, hello & goodbye

Finally I got my rest day! No hiking at all! I don't know how it happened, suddenly it was there. Our couple had decided to leave back home from Belluno, as many others do. The mountains are basically over, from here you can do one more peak, the other 5-6 days to Venice are in the flat.
So the four of us booked our 'luxury' business hotel for the second night, and Jeanette and Alex packed their bags to go home. We brought them to the train station and waited for them to figure out how. Sitting in front of the station waiting, a car turns up and 4 other hikers we had met on the way got out! We thought we had missed them for good as they were ahead of us and wanted to finish in Belluno as well. But they had done the tricky part which we had skipped (we had gained 1-2 days by skipping). Some of them had the Klettersteig equipment or hired it. Some were plain crazy doing it without. Maybe I will come back one day with the right equipment and experience to do it as well, it definitely sounded great.
After saying goodbye to everyone we did a tour around the cute town of Belluno and once it was time for lunch it was as well time to say goodbye from our couple. They had a more than 24 hour trip ahead of them with bus & trains, I really didn't envy them. So I finally decided to book a flight back. Thursday 28th of July I will be flying from Venice back home.
The lunch place we chose had amazing food again. For the second time we entered an empty restaurant and left a crowded one!
As usual, from roughly 12 to 3:30 everything in Italy is closed. So we kept walking around the city for a bit more until the outdoor shop opens. Going around in circles, some parts for the third time, we managed to get our 10km together :-) After shopping we went back to the hotel for a rest and then back to town for dinner. For the third time great food, and a restaurant that got so crowded that people queued for it! I would say a well spent rest day!

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