Marilyn and I find ourselves nicely bound by the 3 r’s when we trek in the mountains. Routines, rhythms, and repasts.

Breakfast repast founds our day and sets the rhythm. At 7:00 of 7:30 breakfast requires a routine of rising early enough to be ahead of the crowd to perform our personal regimens in the communal washrooms. Dressed for the day except our boots and packed for the day except our lodge shoes we are at breakfast when it opens.

Wonderful breakfast buffets stocked with meats and cheeses, cereals and breads, butter and spreads (there’s always Nutella), a few sweet pastries and tray with eggs with a big sign in English stating that they must be cooked. It seems it is an American thing to crack these raw eggs thinking they’re hard cooked. Coffee is generally good and strong. There are juices and fruits. Believe me we don’t count calories in the mountains.

This routine puts us on the trail between 7:45 and 8:15, our choice to start early enough to beat the afternoon thundershowers. Caught once during the Tour du Mont Blanc an experience we’d rather not repeat. On the trail we hike briskly allowing stops when either of us wants a photo. About hourly we’ll take a break, and more often when it is steep.

Lunch may be our only non-routine. If there is a rifugio available late morning, we’ll stop for a bite. On long days we pack a lunch (sometimes this is a ProMeal bar) when there is no food opportunities mid-hike. On this trip we lunched late at our destination a couple of times.

Arriving is a routine. Register, exchange hiking boots for lodge shoes, locate our room eat lunch or/and shower. Lovely, soothing, invigorating shower. Then there is laundry if necessary.

Now we have recreation time. Sitting in the bar/dinning room/breakfast room we meet fellow travelers, drink a beer or spritz, play some cards and wait for dinner.

In these rifugios we were assigned a table sometimes paired with other couples or a larger group table. Always interesting meeting people at dinner this way.

The dinner meals were wonderful. A la Carte at two rifugios, fixed prix with a couple of choices for each course at our last stay and a fixed menu at Rifugio Lagazuoi (regular or vegetarian). The meal at Lagazuoi was the best by a hair. The pasta course was a cheese ravioli with a parmesan cream sauce plated beside a penne sauce with ragu. Secondi was beef sliced thinly on a bed of arugula served with a potatoe croquette and ratatouille. And then dessert of polenta (like rice) pudding with a sweet ricotta sauce. Washed down with a half-liter of vina di casa. Perfetto!

We’ll spare you further descriptions. We had Hungarian beef goulash, dumplings with butter sauce, tagliatelle with tomatoes and pesto, sausages, pork cutlets, on and on. Vegetables were good and we particularly liked “Cabbage Salad”, thinly (like angel hair) sliced green cabbage in a light vinegrete and ….. seeds.

Off to bed from the dinner table about 9 and ready for another hike.