Misurina Lake

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Misurina Lake was was a child first. She was the tiny and pretty only child of King Sorapss. The King was instead a giant who always forgave his daughter for everything. But Misurina played lots of pranks and she made fun of her affectionate father as large as a mountain. She grew increasingly spiteful, capricious and, especially, curious. One day she discovered how to fill her curiosity. She knew that a fairy who lived on Mounte Cristallo held the mirror named Knoweverything. It sufficed to look oneself in that mirror or to mirror somebody in it to learn everything about that person.

With little insistence, Misurina persuaded her father to visit the pixie to ask her the mirror. The fairy, who was aware of Misurina’s oddness, agreed but imposed a condition: as the sun irradiated her garden on Mount Cristallo all the time and it dried her flowers, the pixie asked the giant to turn into a mountain in exchange for the mirror, so she could finally get some shadow on her garden.

Sorapiss reported his daughter the fairy’s proposal, and she jubilated as doing so would have allowed her to go to play on the mountain slopes created by her father, who would have lived forever once changed oneself into a mountain. Then Misurina ripped the mirror out of her father’s hands, and he began inflating and growing larger: so his hair became trees, and his wrinkles became crevasses. Misurina suddenly understood that she was on top of a mountain, and frightened for those abrupt events she fell from the summit. Tears for despair began gushing from Sorapìs’ gigantic eyes as he saw his beloved daughter dying.

Misurina Lake Today

According to the legend, those tears formed the lake beneath which Misurina and the mirror rest. A mirror where Sorapiss looks oneself still today.

Misurina is one of those magical places that may vaunt, among their natural beauty, also a legend with origins getting lost in the night of the times. In fact places like this and its lake, its mountains, its meadows, its slopes, are pearls studded in the rocks of Dolomite Mountains. For this reason when traveling uphill towards Misurina, from Auronzo or Cortina or Val Pusteria, one may not turn aside eyes from the unmistakable profile of Tre Cime di Lavaredo. Other celebrated mountains surround the place right here. From Monte Piana, to Cristallo, to Cadini di Misurina, ending with Monte Sorapiss.

Also the Great War (World War I) touched this place. On Monte Piana, the original war trenches and stations were restored. About 10 local hotels offer approximately 500 beds. A ski lift brings skiers to Col De Varda, and Polo matches are held on the frozen lake in a dream scenario.

Healthiness of Misurina Lake is guaranteed by the monumental Pio XII Institute building, a consolidated part of Misurina landscape nowadays, one of the few world’s centers specialized in the care of juvenile asthma. This is an appreciated destination also for mountaineers, for hikers, skiers of all specialties.

It is incredible that a place that is not so large may hold concentrated such a paradise of nature, sport and pleasure.

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