We will be in the Dolomites for just a few days in late August. We will have a car & plan to just drive around & take in the scenery & stop for photo ops, etc. I've heard that one needs a good map for driving through the Dolomites which we have, BUT my husband will do the driving and I suffer from bad motion sickness so reading or looking at a map while driving is out of the question for me. We would like to use our GPS for this purpose but I'm wondering how feasible this is. If anyone has done this, how do you program the GPS for something like the Great Dolomite Road? Do you program it for a town along the way? If you've done this, how did it work out? I appreciate any suggestions.
Posted by
Monterey County, CA (formerly Verbania Italy-Lago Maggiore)
1626 posts
We drove from Austria to Lake Como and wanted to drive through and stop in St. Moritz, Switzerland. Garmin wanted to send us a different way, so we just plugged in St. Moritz as a Via point, and it worked fine. I don't recall that we referred to any maps during our drive. I was concerned we'd have 5 hours of intense windy roads, so I google earthed a close up of our route and followed the route, so I had a good idea of what to expect. We only had a couple instances of intense switchbacks, (unlike any I'd ever experienced in my 20 years in Colorado) between the Swiss and Italian border.
Posted by
Little Rock, AR
105 posts
If you have a Garmin GPS, you can get a card that has Italy, Greece, and a few other countries nearby. Mine worked great throughout Italy. I pre-programmed intermediate addresses and destinations, and that worked very well. Sometimes the GPS wants to take you in the most direct route, so doing a little planning in advance will let you have a little finer control of the trip. The only issues that we had were in roundabouts, where the GPS seemed to want to count differently, so we learned to watch the highlighted direction carefully instead of listening to the verbal commands. Even with that one small quibble, the GPS made our trip much easier.
Posted by
Tilburg, Netherlands
2829 posts
The best way to use a GPS in a situation like yours is to have a couple of carefully programmed (in your home, with Google MAps or Michelin Maps opened) "waypoints" that don't have intermediate reasonable routes between then. So that way you are "forced" to drive in the route you want. Do NOT use the method of picking cities you see in the map as waypoints/intermediate stops because that will take you to their downtown or major square or else some place you don't necessarily want to go through if focusing on the outdoors/landscape.
Posted by
NYC area
2914 posts
Hi Sheron, My opinion is that driving through (or around) the Dolomites is relatively easy. Not that many roads, so not too much confusion, plus the signs are very good. You really just need to know what towns/villages you're heading towards along your travels. Where or what area will you be staying? We've stayed in both the Val Gardena and the Alta Badia. Just another opinion... there is no need at all to drive "The Great Dolomite Road" as laid out in guide books. Driving a few passes is all that's needed. An example is this drive we've done. It can easily be done in a day and covers drives over 4 Dolomite Passes. It can be started/ended from any point really, but here I'll use La Villa (Alta Badia): Head to Corvara and take the Campolongo Pass to Arabba. From Arraba take the Pordoi Pass towards Canazei. Before you get to Canazei, take the Sella Pass. From the Sella Pass get right on the Gardena Pass towards Alta Badia. After the Gardena Pass you're back in Colfosco/Corvara and 10 min. later you're back in La Villa. There's a cafe/restaurant/rest stop at the "top" of the Gardena and Sella Passes. You'll also notice a few small places to park along the passes to get out and walk among the Dolomite peaks. Paul