Cortinaaaaargh

So what do you do with a forced mini-break in Cortina???

Walk into town for starters. One of the very fine things about Cortina is the bike path that runs up the valley for about 40km into town...this means you can walk the 10 miles from Fawlty Towers to town without having to deal with traffic - brilliant. And on the way, there are loads of super groovy buildings with great roofs...they have a hint of 'Psycho' about em, but I have to admit, I'd quite happily have a roof like that on my house.

So...the Cortina challenge was 3 fold:
1: Find Internet access (failed)
2: Get a good cup of coffee (failed - in Italy of all places)
3: Find something cheap in town (not on your nelly).

The town is dripping with furs...if they aren't wearing em, they are walking em. I've never seen so many shops with 5000+ euro price tags. There was a very nice petrol blue fur  jacket - reduced to 4000 - oooh hold me back!

And as for the dogs...you've never seen so many lap dogs, particularly the ones that look like they've been smashed head first into a brick wall...which brings me onto the dog launderette...I kid you not!

A real life dog launderette - for those who don't want to get fur balls down their own plugholes...comes with sinks, shampoo and conditioner, doggy nibbles(!), hair dryers (!!)....amazing.

I somhow can't imagine that the fur-wearers will be doing the dog-wash thing...suspect it's the preserve of the serfs.

I never knew things like this existed, but I guess when it comes to dogs, I'm of the eat 'em rather than walk 'em school....






Impressions of Cortina overall weren't too favourable - far too smart for its own good. However....and this is a big however...the galleries where you can buy art were AMAZING...and a reflection of the money about. There were works by Miro, Warhol and Keith Haring for sale...originals too...we're talking LOTS of zero's on the price tags!

Also - some stunning bronzes by someone called Fernando Bottera and another guy who's name began with 'R', but my memory fails me.

And finally...having raved about the art fart, there was an exhibition in town called 'real forgeries' where you got to see forgeries of the mona lisa and other such works....but you have to ask...what the hell's a real forgery - the whole point of a forgery is that it's fake...so does that make a fake forgery the real thing...I'm very confused.

Didn't like Cortina...wouldn't go back, but thought the Dolomites were speccy and worth another visit :-)

1.27 hrs...

...is about the time it took from the medley of phone calls for the nice little recovery man to come and pick me and the yellow peril up. Didn't need to hack off an arm or anything -all very civilised! The only arm action needed was offering various hand signals to irate Italian drivers who were giving me a hard time for taking up road space on a Saturday morning.

As a kid we had a Ford Cortina (Saluki Bronze -SOE 308H - remember it well).It was very unreliable and broke down all the time. In fact...the only time it didn't break down was when it did a trip to Austria, which was nothing short of amazing.

It therefore seems a curious twist of fate that after 15yrs of owning 205's, the first time I should experience a breakdown is in Cortina in Italy...the heart of the Dolomites, and the most expensive place known to mankind.

After lots of fast chat, hand waving and pointing, the nice breakdown man reckoned the issue was with the pomp-uh, and the gist of his chat was...it's bygered and it's easy to fix, but we don't have the parts and it's a saturday, so I hope you've got somewhere to stay cause you aint goin anywhere till monday at the earliest :-(

And that is how I came to have a few days in Cortina.

So -  some top tips for European Breakdown:

1: Have Breakdown Cover (tick);
2: Breakdown where there is a view and it's in the sun (tick);
3: Breakdown where there is full mobile reception (tick);
4: Have the mobile fully charged (tick - a miracle!);
5: Don't even begin to feel smug that you will be put up in some swanky hotel in Cortina - fat chance love!
6: Don't breakdown in a French car in Italy -  the parts are wallet death.
7: When you get separated from your car at the garage, remember to take out your waterproofs (doh).