Three o’clock at night. A tawny owl is hooting on the other side of the river Ourthe (Occidentale). A hazy moon casts its veiled yellow ochre light onto an empty campsite. Except for our tent. Martha is far away snoring in Dreamland, and I am lying on my back, head outside the tent looking heavenwards. Apart from the sound of the owl there’s only the soft murmuring of the river’s water flowing from its source northwards. Deep down in my mind my thoughts about the past three weeks wandering through the Dolomites and Alps start a series of reminiscences