Marco Polo's Spirit

Each mountain in the Dolomites is like a piece of art. Reinhold Messner WHY HIKING MONTE RITE AND THE MESSNER MOUNTAIN MUSEUM DOLOMITES On 8th May 1978 the Italian montaineer and extreme climber, Reinhold Messner, together with his fellow climber, Peter Habeler reached 8,848 meters climbing Mount Everest without oxygen masks.  A landmark date for world mountaineering that made them immortal and changed forever the history of climbing. About that experience Messner said he remembered one thing in particular: not the actual climbing, but the moment when his climbing companion bent over him and hugged him thankfully after reaching the top.  The emotional story made a big impression on me, and triggered the desire to know more about that climber, the Messner Mountain Museum Dolomites on Monte Rite and a whole world unknown to me: that of the Dolomites' early mountaineering.  WHERE IS MONTE RITE  Summer - Monte Rite - one of the Dolomites' peaks rising up to 2,183 metres between the

Venice: sunny, silent and empty. Nothing hurts more than an empty Venice, but at the same time nothing is better than a narrow and deserted Venetian  calle  flooded by the sun. Nothing hurts more than an empty Venice, but at the same time nothing is better than a  campo  where a lonely wellhead stands out without the crowded constant flow of tourists. Nothing hurts more than an empty Venice, but at the same time nothing is better than Ponte di Rialto without masses of tourists: on the  ponte  these days the only living thing is the glare of the sun on the closed shutters of the many jewelleries, blown glass and leatherware shops.  Deserted Rialto Bridge in Venice It is because there is nothing that for Venice is just good or just evil, so it has always been in her complex history, and so it is also for the post-Covid Venice tourism rebound. After more than a year of Venice's closures and the absence of tourism, Venice can't take it anymore and wants to reopen.  Empty Venice in