My husband and I visited the Italian Dolomites this year on a hiking holiday and it was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever visited. For years, I dreamed of seeing these jagged peaks with my own eyes, and they still lived up to my very high expectations.
Dolomites Hiking Holiday:
Where are the Dolomites?
The Italian Dolomites are a series of impressive mountain ranges in north-east Italy, near the Austrian border. The Dolomites are the perfect location for a hiking holiday! Although these mountains are in Italy, the region has a unique cultural mixture of Austrian and Italian. The majority of areas were only annexed by Italy from the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I.
As a result, the architecture is very reminiscent of the Alps, and you’ll hear a mixture of Italian, German and local dialects like Ladin. Many places have both Italian and German names. My husband and I spent months in the lead-up to our trip learning Italian, but surprisingly (to us at least) spoke mostly German on our trip!
How to get to the Dolomites?
You can travel to the Dolomites by train, bus or car. We hired a rental car. The region is roughly three hours’ drive from Venice or Innsbruck, and about four hours from Milan or Munich. The cheapest option for our flights (from Queenstown, New Zealand) was arriving into Munich International. In Munich, we stayed a night at an airport hotel, before we picked up our car and drove down to the Dolomites.
Where to stay, and for how long?
There are so many beautiful places to stay in the Dolomites for a hiking holiday. We chose two towns to base ourselves in on either side of the region, which was a fantastic way of reducing our driving. Next time I’d love to stay somewhere a bit further off the beaten path.
Ortisei (Urtijëi in German) felt like a cute ski resort village. We stayed here two nights, but wish we’d been able to stay one or two days longer. Ortisei is a great base to see Seceda, Alpe di Suisi (Seisler Alm), and Gardena Pass (Passo Gardena), as well as many of the famously picturesque churches in the area like Kirche St. Johann and Chiesa di Santa Maddalena.
We next stayed in Cortina d’Ampezzo for five nights. Cortina felt bigger than Ortisei and more commercial, although still with absolutely stunning mountain views on all sides. Cortina is a great place to access Lago di Braies (Pragser Wildsee), Tre Cime di Lavaredo (Drei Zinnen), and Cinque Torri. We could have perhaps dropped this stay down to four nights, but it was lovely having a “rest day” (more on that later).
Must-See Sights on a Dolomites Hiking Holiday
Sightseeing Map
I’ve included my whole list of locations in the below map, including sights, accomodation, restaurants and (where it was helpful) parking spots. Click and check it out.
Munich -> Ortisei
Neuschwanstein
After a night of jet lagged sleep at NH München Airport hotel, we picked up our rental car and baby carseat and drove down to Hohenswangau in Bavaria. Our hotel was the very cute Hotel Alpenstuben.
Alpenstuben was right beneath Neuschwanstein Castle, we could even glimpse the castle from our window! We caught the bus up to the castle since it was quicker, and then slowly walked back down the hill to the hotel. The castle itself was closed for the day, but we spent a lot of time at the gorgeous lookouts (which were almost deserted), taking in the golden hour views.
Mittenwald
There were so many other sights to see near Hohenswangau, but unfortunately we had to keep driving down towards the Dolomites and our first stop in Ortisei. We grabbed lunch on the way in Mittenwald, and checked out the amazing Leutasch-Klamm Wasserfallsteig (an amazing short walk into a gorge on a cantilevered walkway to a waterfall). I would highly recommend this detour if the gorge is open, it was amazing.
Ortisei
In Ortisei, we stayed at an apartment near the centre of town with free parking, called Residence Albierch. For dinner we grabbed some delicious takeaway pizza from Turonda, highly recommend!
Seceda
For our only full day in Ortisei, we prioritised visiting the beautiful Seceda ridgeline. It was a short walk from our accomodation to the cablecars that took us up into the mountains. You can hike up to Seceda for free, but it’s a decent uphill climb, so with baby we opted for the easy way!
Seceda had been a bucket-list destination of mine and I was blown away by its beauty. We spent most of the day exploring the ridgeline, alpine pastures and sampling the food and drinks at the many hüttes (chalets). Lots of walking, and a fair bit of sunburn (always wear sun protection!).
I’d wanted to also check out Alpe di Suisi or some of the beautiful churches near Ortisei, but we didn’t have enough time, so the next day we started our drive to Cortina d’Ampezzo.
Passo Gardena
We took the road up to Passo Gardena, where we stopped for lunch and a short walk. It was gorgeous! I would have loved to have spent more time exploring the trails here. It was very picturesque. But baby needed a nap, so we continued the drive to our next stop in Cortina d’Ampezzo.
Cortina d’Ampezzo
Our accomodation at Cortina was Hotel Pontechiesa, a very cute hotel with free parking and easily walkable to the town centre. Some restaurants we really rated were Dolom’eats all’Aquila in the centre of town, and Fvsion which wasn’t too far from our accomodation.
Lago di Braies
This was another absolute highlight of our trip. Lago di Braies (Pragser Wildsee) is considered the Pearl of the Dolomites. It’s a very popular tourist destination, about an hour’s drive from Cortina. I was expecting crowds of people and an underwhelming view, but when we first arrived it was gorgeous and not too busy (although it did get quite busy later).
The road to Lago di Braies is closed to vehicles without a valid parking permit from July 10th – September 10th, between the hours of 9:30am-4 pm. (You can still drive freely to the lake before or after this time, or at other times of the year). It can be a bit complicated, but I used this website to help understand the different options to access the lake.
When we arrived, we immediately hired a canoe and Matt rowed us out onto the lake. It was stunning, and there were only a few other boats out at this time (there were a LOT more on the lake by midday). After this we grabbed some food and walked the lake circuit (4km taking us about 1.5hrs with lots of stops for photos).
Tre Cime di Lavaredo
Another highlight of our trip was seeing Tre Cime di Lavaredo (Drei Zinnen) with our own eyes. These three peaks are iconic! We got up early to beat the rush on the toll road (but still had to wait our turn, and had to park far down the road).
We walked the 10km circuit around the base of the peaks, starting at Rifugio Auronzo and walking clockwise. The small Malga Langalm was our breakfast stop, and the much larger and busier Rifugio Antonio Locatelli for lunch.
The circuit was a lot harder than I expected from the research I’d carried out before our trip. It could have been the heat or my lack of fitness (or both), but I really struggled on the couple of steep uphills. However, the hot food and cold drinks more than made up for it, as did the amazing views! It was the longest hike I’d done postpartum, so I was pretty happy.
Cinque Torri
The next day was a bit more relaxed. We drove up to the Seggiovia Cinque Torri chairlift and rode up to Rifugio Scoiattoli (you can also hike up, but it’s much more strenuous and obviously takes more time). From the rifugio, we wandered around Cinque Torri area and its open-air war museum.
There were panels in both Italian and English explaining the restored trenches and battlements. It was a sobering reminder of the regions relatively recent bloody history. The rock towers were less impressive than Tre Cime, but still really interesting. They reminded me a bit of Castle Hill in New Zealand.
Passo di Giau
We had lunch at Rifugio Scoiattoli before taking the chairlift back down to the car, and driving to Passo di Giau for a bit of sightseeing. Little babe had fallen asleep in the backseat, so we couldn’t stop at the pass to take in the views. In my opinion, it seemed less impressive than Passo Gardena, but still beautiful, and would be a gorgeous spot for a picnic.
Rifugio Faloria
Like Ortisei, there are several cablecars directly from the town that act as ski-lifts in winter. For our “rest day” we took the Mandres-Faloria cablecars up to Rifugio Faloria. We had lunch here (would not recommend) and took in the almost 360 degree views of Cortina and the impressive mountain ranges that surround the town.
Cliffhanger Lodge is a short walk from the rifugio, and like always I would have loved to be able to spend more time exploring all the trails in the area – there looked to be so many! In typical Alice fashion, by the end of our rest day we’d already clocked up 20,000 steps!
Cortina d’Ampezzo -> Munich
Mayrhofen
From Cortina d’Ampezzo we started the drive back to Munich, with a slight detour to Mayrhofen. We stayed at the new Der Siegeler hotel. The manager was so lovely, giving us some delicious chocolate since we were some of the first Kiwis he’d ever met. I’d highly recommend!
Olpererhütte
This was one of my favourite days on our Dolomites trip (and it wasn’t even in the Dolomites). We climbed up to Olpererhütte and its famous bridge. It was an uphill climb, my watch read 6.5km return with 660m elevation gain / loss. But the views were out of this world stunning! The photos will explain more than my words can.
We had lunch at Olpererhütte itself, before quickly descending to back to the car and driving to Munich to drop it off. We stayed the night again at NH Hotel before boarding our flight the next morning.
Helpful Tips for your Dolomites Hiking Holiday
- There are speed cameras in many of the towns and villages (which Google Maps would often alert us too, handy). Be mindful of your speed.
- In many towns in Italy there are ZTL zones (limited traffic zones), where you will be fined if you even drive a metre into. Do you research if you plan to drive into towns.
- Download the area you are wanting to drive on Google Maps and you’ll be able to do some searches and directions without data / wifi. Super handy!
- Many places (including the alpine hüttes) had contactless payment (paywave if you’re from New Zealand). We used cash in some places, but not as often as we expected.
- If you’re taking any of the cablecars up into the mountains, remember that due to the elevation, the temperature will often be much colder at the top than down in the valleys. Take warm layers!
- Many places in the Dolomites are closed in the shoulder seasons (in late autumn and early spring). This includes hüttes, cablecars and some restaurants and shops.
- Although most people speak good English, brushing up some basic Italian and German phrases will go a long way!
- When you’re researching where you want to go, save the places to a list on Google Maps! Super handy to have them all in one place, and makes it really simple to navigate once you’re on the ground.
Want to check out some other amazing trips?
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