Rifugio Monte Baldo (Rovereto): champions of hospitality

After a strenuous hike up our usual 3,000 feet (well, with all that we eat, we need to make amends somehow), on our way back we stumble across a place that offers respite to the weary traveller, can you spot it down the slope?

It is located on the beautiful, flora-rich mountains dominating Lake Garda. Inside it is rustic

and above all warm:

The warmth is not only physical: the staff/owners give all the signs of being genuinely interested in your welfare.

The deal is a set menu, you can choose between around four or five primi, same number of mains, and desserts.

Just after the bread,

accompanied by a complimentary generous mixed salad:

do first come the fettuccine with roe deer ragout:

to which a deluge of strangolapreti (a kind of bread dumplings with greens) is quickly added:

ok, the butter seasoning the dumplings is going to mix with the ragout, but this is not the place for such nitpicking...All was very good, well-made and tasty.

Next, a triumph of meats. We had asked for carne salada and goulash, but well, they want to feed you properly here, so here comes the carne salada (literally, salted meat, very common in Trentino), and in two types: the standard one, quickly passed over the skillet:

and the home cured one, looking like bresaola, thrown in extra for good measure:

Both truly excellent, and before you have time to recover, there is the goulash for you, with all the trimmings: baked fennel, polenta, roast potatoes:

very satisfying!. After all this, we feel we have to go for just one dessert (under the impression that eschewing dessert completely would really offend our gracious hosts), and opt for a tiramisu:

We suspect there was more cream than mascarpone, but our arteries were thankful.

With two coffees, a 1.5 litre bottle of water, and half a litre of very drinkable wine (which one? well, either a one litre bottle, that you find already on the table; or our carafe:

the grand total came to.... €30 for the two of us, yes you heard us right, just above a tenner each in GBP.

A warm place, as we said, run by a delightful family, where you are even entitled to proper tablecloth (some more upmarket places in London, please take note), this is the place to be when what faces you is another couple of hours of marching in this weather:

And in the fair season, you can relax outside on the benches, in the beautiful Alpine landscape all around you. And for the less adventurous among you... Rifugio Monte Baldo can be easily reached by car!

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