Saturday Liz was on domestics again so I took the morning to have a wander around the local village, called Pedraces Badia. There's a huge cycling race happening tomorrow so the town was teeming with cyclists signing up & doing their last training before the big day. Apparently there's about 9000 people participating and it goes on all day, which means most of the roads will be closed & we'll have to stay close to home, just going wherever is within walking distance. So I had a wander round there, although there's really not far to go & the village is reasonably tiny, mostly consisting of chalets for visitors to stay at & quaint Italian cafes. Then I headed back to the chalet, parked myself in a comfy spot in the sun & got stuck into my next book :)

In the afternoon when Liz was all done with her jobs we went for a walk to a beautiful lake nearby, grabbed some icecream & sat by the water on a picnic rug & talked & talked & talked…it was ridiculously picturesque. Beautiful lake with thick, lush forests all around…green, green grass…the mountains in the background. Oh & the iceream was amazing - proper Italian gelato, the real deal ;)

In the evening I chatted with some of the guests out on the balcony before heading in for dinner out the back in the kitchen with the rest of the staff. Some of the guests have actually started mistaking me for staff & earlier in the evening someone approached me to see if I could do something about a problem with the electricity on the second floor…I politely explained that while, as a fellow guest, I couldn't really do anything about it, I'd be happy to find someone who could :P

After dinner (more amazing pasta + chicken + pannacotta!) & washing up, Em, Liz, & I sat downstairs in our bedroom having a girly chat while Rainer & Christina's daughter Mel straightened Liz's hair & then attacked her with makeup (much to Liz's very minimalistic-make-up-style distress :P) hehe Em & I found it very amusing…Liz not so much! But she's a good sport & always willing to give anything a go :) Once she was all dolled up we headed down to the local pub (the Badia pub AKA the "bad idea" pub :P) where some of the staff from the other chalet were performing an acoustic guitar set. The perfect end to yet another perfect day in the Dolomites :)