Best Hiking in Dolomites, Traveling via Train?

I'm a casual walker rather than a hiker, but I found last year that both Bolzano and Bressanone worked as bases for bus trips up into the Dolomites that connected to chair lifts for higher-altitude walks. I must admit that I don't remember whether I could actually see the mountains from either city, though.

Bolzano is much larger than Bressanone, but both have very pretty historic districts. I ended up in a Bressanone hotel that was a fairly significant walk--by small-city standards--from the train and bus stations (which are not right together). But that may just have been bad luck since I was making reservations as I traveled. In Bolzano the buses and trains are closer together.

One advantage of Bressanone is that last year local hotels gave out a free tourist card covering trains in the valley, many buses and even a few chairlifts. It saved me a lot of money. I think in Bolzano you must buy the local equivalent of that card.

This is a beautiful area, very much worth a stop-over if you don't have more time than that. I went up to the Seiser Alm (via Castelrotto) for a meadow walk and traveled to some lovely areas by bus, including Ortisei.

I did have an issue with the lack of air-conditioning in some of the 3-star accommodations. Their position is that it doesn't get really hot there very often so they don't need a/c. My view is that if it's 88 or 90 when I'm there, they need a/c. Yes, it's all about me. I doubt that you'll have that sort of heat in late May, though.

Do you recall if the bus ride from Bressanone to Castelrotto took long? We will unfortunately have only 24-30 hours in the area and would like to maximize our time to the extent possible.

I don't remember, but I just checked Rome2Rio (good for investigating transportation options), and it says 49-53 minutes for Bressanone-Castelrotto and 48 minutes from Bolzano. I did a lot of bus trips in that area, and frankly they are sort of running together in my memory, but I think I went to Castelrotto, walked around for a little while, then caught another bus to the point where I got the lift. It really wasn't as complicated as it sounds, and I am not an early riser.

I think the Castelrotto-Seiser Alm Bahn trip was the one on which the bus driver forgot to let me off at the stop near the lift, and I had to double back. If you have a GPS-enabled phone or other device, you might want to use it on that bus trip since your time is tight and you don't want to miss the stop. Or perhaps try Google earth view and see if you can learn enough about the area to recognize the stop as the bus approaches it. I was probably unlucky that I was the only traveler on that bus; I'm sure in most cases there would be other people getting off at the base of the lift.

Navigator,

Staying anywhere in that area for one night is not going to allow much time for hiking. You'll use at least half a day to get there, so you'll only have the remainder of the arrival day afternoon and evening for hiking, and will have to check-out of your hotel after breakfast the following morning. Hardly worth the effort.

If you could increase your time to at least two nights (one full day), Castelrotto provides some good hiking opportunities. For example, you could take the chair lift uphill from Castelrotto to Marinzen and then hike from there to Alpi di Siusi, as shown on THIS SIGN. The Alpi di Siusi area provides many hiking opportunities, but you'd need a darn sight more than one day to even scratch the surface.

As you're travelling from Germany, it's very easy to get to Castelrotto. Take the train to Bolzano and then transfer to Bus for the short (about one hour) trip to Castelrotto.

Unfortunately, the options were to either blow through that area entirely without stopping and spend an extra night in Venice before flying out, or split up the long drive from Germany to Venice and at least enjoy some limited time in the Dolomites with an overnight stay. I realize we won't have time for any huge hikes, but I'm hoping to fit in at least 3-4 hours of simple hiking / trekking on both days we are there without having to take to much transportation to get there.

Navigator,

Your best bet is to travel by train and spend one night in Bolzano. That trip goes through the scenic Brenner Pass, which I always enjoy (I was through there again last September). As far as hiking opportunities, maybe this will help....

http://www.bolzano-bozen.it/en/walking-excursions-bolzano.htm

Ken,

Thanks for weighing in. My concern with Bolzano is that it is so large that it might be more time consuming to get outside of the city and access some of the hiking, and even then you'll be looking down on a town of 100,000. The other towns seem small enough where you could walk 200 yards in any direction and be outside of the town. Was that the case with Bolzano in your experience?

Hi,

I'd suggest heading to the Val Gardena. Drop your bags and catch one of many cable cars in the area. Ortisei would be a good choice, but any of the three (Ortisei, St. Christina and Selva) makes a good base, as they are a few minutes from one another by car or bus, St. Christina being in the middle and the smallest. Ortisei has a nice pedestrian zone. These are "in" the Dolomites, as opposed to Bolzano and Castelrotto, which are on the outskirts.

www.valgardena.it

This cable car takes you right from Ortisei to the Seiser Alm/Alpe di Siusi.

www.alpedisiusi-seiseralm.com

I believe you can take the train to Waidbruck/Ponte Gardena and then a bus into the nearby
Val Gardena.

Paul

Navigator,

With only one night and a few short hours for hiking, it would be prudent to minimize transportation times in order to maximize hiking time, and that's one reason I suggested Bolzano. Not only is it easy to reach from Germany, the onward journey to Venice will also be easy from there (often a change at Verona Porta Nuova).

Any thoughts on staying in Chiusa or Santa Maddalena or in between and hiking around Santa Maddalena? It looks like there's a short 20 minute bus ride from Chiusa to Santa Maddalena and some of the iconic views of the Dolomites can be seen around there.

I didn't go up that valley, but Chiusa/Klausen is a very attractive small city. Would be a nice place to stay, I think.

Klausen/Chiusa is a cute, smaller town. It sits at the very beginning of the Val Gardena. Ortisei and the cable car up to the Alpe di Siusi/Seiser Alm is under 30 minutes away.

Paul

We've stayed in Klausen so many times that the owner of the campground we stay in knows us - die Amerikanerin!! - ...it's a lovely small village with great hiking all around nearby. You will need to rely on buses in the area. If I had a short time though I would stay in the Val Gardena. It's much easier to get up into the mountains directly from the town and you will see some of the best views from the surrounding peaks and alpine meadows.
Bolzano is nice but it's out of the mountains that you want to see...and it's UBER expensive.

I ran into the problem of huge drop of charges last year. Our trip was in reverse from Italy north to Germany. We chose to use an Italian rental car for the Dolomites and dropped it at Herz in Bolzano. Then took a taxi over to the train station and took the train north through the Brenner, eventually picking up a German rental car.

We stayed in the Pustertal valley area, east of Brixen, in a mountainside village called Nauders. That was a very pretty area with opportunities to drive as high 5500 elevation. There in is range of mountains that reaches over 10k feet on the north side of this valley with a series of hüttes for hikers. We drove to near 5500' to this one in a high Alpine valley: https://www.facebook.com/gattererhutte.fanealm I think it would definitely be a disadvantage trying to get to the best vistas and scenery without a car.

Thank you all for the advice. I think we'll plan to stay in Chiusa along the train line and then take a bus to nearby Santa Maddalena to hike in that area. There are a number of hiking circles in that area, including the Adolf Munkel Trail which looks good for a short hike with some great views.

Adolf Munkel Trail
San Giovanni Church near Santa Maddalena
Trail Maps