Sunday 10 July
We visit Cinque Torre to stay overnight. The cable car takes us up through the meadows and over the trees.
Our room is a very large one with the balcony and a window looking directly onto the towers. Itching to go and look at them, we go out straight away, climbing at the school of rock sector until rain falls.
Hoping to wait it out under an overhanging tower, we eat our lunch while Jim tries a steep climb. I peep into a crevice where a little dark brown bird has a nest in a hole in the rock; a closely woven whorl of grass and soil sitting there in the dark hole.
the storm gets worse – thunder booms and echoes around the rocks for an hour and we see incredible forks of lightning close-up. One seems to strike one of the towers making a sharp crack instants before we hear the boom of its thunder.
Another fork seems to end in a ball shape if that is possible and yet another seems to hit the Lagazuoi cable car station. Later we hear that the Lagazuoi tunnels had been flooded and parts of the Via Ferrata there washed away. Eventually we have to dash back to the refuge in the rain and thunder as it continues for hours.
not at home 