Sunday 26 closes the first season at high altitude for the Menardi family: “What a surprise: up here the weather changes suddenly”
CORTINA. A few more days and the curtain of the summer season will fall on the Nuvolau refuge. On September 26, Emma Menardi and her family will close their doors to return to Cortina. So the first summer spent as manager of the Nuvolau is coming to an end, lived day and night with one’s head one step away from heaven, in close contact with many people who daily reached the refuge only to get to know the story of Emma, a very young globetrotter. Ampezzo who at one point decided to return home to manage that refuge in the meantime orphaned after the loving care of Mansueto and Giovanna which lasted 47 years.
Emma, what are your feelings a few days before the end of the summer season?
“It was an extraordinary experience. We are only sorry that it started a little late due to the works that have affected the refuge until the end of July. They were mandatory jobs, we could not do without them, but we were not discouraged for this. We supported and supported the Cai di Cortina in the construction site, offering coffee and sausage sandwiches to both the workers and those tourists who still went up here even knowing that the refuge was closed. We owed it, as a sign of gratitude ».
What will remain most impressed on your mind of this first season experienced as a high altitude refugee?
«The affection of the people. Perfect strangers who reached the Nuvolau every day to get to know my story up close and in person. I am proud of this. Many have candidly revealed to me that they have come all the way up here just to get to know me, to take a picture together or to have a coffee and chat. Every day like this, with that question to which I have always answered with a smile: “Are you Emma?”. But the Nuvolau refuge is not just Emma. We all did a great job, after all we are a very close and close-knit family and this inevitably facilitated the approach to a new world. Tiring but very beautiful. Another thing that I will always remember with great emotion is the sudden change of time. Up here you go from rain to sun, from storm to wind in seconds. It is the spectacle of nature, something to leave you speechless as you approach a window ».
What will Emma do now?
“We take a few days to put everything back in order. The 26th will be the last day of work for the refuge, we will reopen in June as it is impossible to get up here in winter. What I will do? I’d like to leave again. The desire to travel around the world has not faded even though I have greater responsibilities than in the past. Where would I like to go? My dream is to return to Chile to complete the Carretera austral by bicycle. I cycled 900 of the approximately 1200 kilometers in total before the advent of Covid. It would take me a couple of months to make my dream come true. Now then in Chile we go towards the summer, it would also be the best time to go back. However, there are restrictions and then the situation linked to the pandemic is still uncertain. For this I will have to carefully evaluate what to do. I can’t afford to get stuck down there, here in Cortina there is a refuge to carry on even if I am not and I will never be alone ».
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