The Italian Dolomites in Winter (Val Gardena)
In December, my friend Emelia and I spent two weeks in Northern Italy, traversing from Venice to Bolzano, seeing Padua, Verona, Trento, and Merano.
The Winter Olympics this year are hosted between Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, which is in this area, the Dolomites mountains of Italy. I visited Cortina d’Ampezzo in September.
>> See my photos from that trip here. <<
On that Fall trip, i drove from Innsbruck, Austria, to Lake Braies, then to Cortina d’Ampezzo, then to Tre Cime. You can see this route is along the Eastern side of the Dolomites.
On this recent trip in December, my friend and I stayed outside of Bolzano, which you can see on the very Western part of the map near the bottom. We drove to Gruppo Sella, parking the car in the town of Ortesei.
There were multiple gondolas to go up to the top of the mountains. At first, we picked the wrong one, but the woman at the ticket counter advised us on which one to use to get to hiking trails, as we weren’t skiing. We walked across the cute town to Ortisei - Alpe di Siusi cable car and took it up to the trails.
We were advised that we didn’t need snowshoes or spikes, but that hiking poles would be a good idea, so we rented those for 8 euros a pair and set out on the trails.
While on the trail, my friend struck up a conversation with two men walking nearby, and then we had Italian trail buddies. We walked and talked, getting to know them. One was a lawyer, and one was a project manager, and they lived near Bologna and were on a guys’ trip. We saw pictures of their kids and dogs.
They told us they were there with two buddies who were skiing. We met their friends at a cute chalet for lunch, where immediately ordered cappucinos and learned that it is practically against the law do order a cappucino in Italy after 11 AM. We promised not to make that mistake again! “There’s a correct order,” we were instructed.
That order was food and drinks, then dessert, then espresso (no milk!), and maybe more alcohol. We tried to keep up and were grateful for the lesson in proper Italian etiquette.
We tried a cute electric orange drink called a “bombardino” or “little canon”. Very strong!
We were so happy to make these new friends and learn about another country’s peoples and customs.
The views were astounding. We couldn’t get enough of the blankets of sparkling white snow and gorgeous gray peaks all around.
Sassolungo / Langkofel
Sassolungo translates to “long peak”. It’s the big beautiful mountain on the left. This area is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Ortesei is a town of 4,637 inhabitants in South Tyrol in northern Italy. It occupies the Val Gardena within the Dolomites, a mountain chain that is part of the Alps.
We found some goats…
