Where to stay for a week. Should we stay at two different places or base ourselves in one and explore from there? We plan on renting a car. A friend recommended Bolzano. Thanks for the help.
Thank you all so much for the recommendations.
I’m even more confused as to where to stay as per your notes: San Candido is a front runner.
Anyone stay here? Hotels with air con?
Thanks again
What are your interests and what time of year are you going?
When are you going? Bolzano is very hot in the summer. You want to head up into the mountains into the Alta Badia, Val Gardena, or even over to the Sesto Dolomiti like the town of Moso. You can do the Val Gardena without a car. I think it is more helpful to have a car in the Alta Badia and virtually essential in the Sesto Dolomiti. I would stay one place for a week. There is plenty to keep you busy in any of these areas.
Don’t stay in Bolzano. Defeats the purpose of going to the Dolomites. You have a car, so stay IN the Dolomites, not a city. Look at the Val Gardena and Alta Badia. We loved our stays at the Ciara Montanara in La Villa, Alta Badia.
You could stay in one spot and explore, or divide it between two locations. However you prefer. I don’t see one base asa negative. The Alta Badia is pretty central.
Paul
Bolzano is a beautiful city and definitely worth your time. Alta Badia is wonderful, too. It is a tiny village with magnificent hiking. If you could do both, I would. If you had to chose one, I'd chose Bolzano. It is easy to do day trips to Alta Badia, Lago di Braies or even Lago di Garda. Enjoy your trip!
We are going the last week of July.
We love food in Italy firstly. Lol. I’d like a place with a pool to relax when we aren’t exploring. Hiking, bicycling, swimming, museums and churches. To name a few things we like.
Thanks for your suggestions.
The Italian food in that area will be influenced by Austrian roots as well. We had ravioli filled with red cabbage for example.
I have stayed in both Bolzano and Bressanone in mid-summer. Take seriously the warnings about the heat. You are not in the mountains there; you are down in a valley, and it can bake. The local hoteliers have not yet figured out Climate Change, and many of the moderately priced lodgings are not air conditioned. (The restaurants are mostly not air conditioned, either, which makes meals not so pleasant.) The position of the hotel owners seems to be that it doesn't get terribly hot very often. My position is that I only care about the time when I am there. If it's hot, I want a/c.
Both the cities I mentioned have beautiful historic areas. Bolzano also has the museum housing the Iceman, plus some other worthwhile museums. By all means visit at least Bolzano. But I would definitely stay up in the mountains, at altitude.
Try the Hotel Albion, just outside of Ortisei. A proper Dolomites resort. They will shuttle you to Ortisei and the base stations for the mountain lifts. It is half-pension, which is quite nice. Your breakfast and lunch are at the hotel and they put on an excellent meal with lots of choices. We stayed 5 nights once and did not tire of the cuisine. It trends more toward Italian than Austrian. You can eat your lunches on the trail in a Rifugio. These are mountain restaurants (and lodging) unlike anything we have here.
These inclusive resorts are all over the Dolomites.
I live in Italy and have friends who have recommended Sesto and San Candido. They've also mentioned that there's good transportation once there, with buses that travel from town to town which makes it easy to take day trips. I haven't been yet, but one of my friends is a tour guide, so trust her information.
Monguelfo, Villabassa, Dobbiaco and San Candido are on a railway line whose service was upgraded in recent years. For easy access, they can't be beaten.
