We have two nights in early September scheduled for the Dolomites. We will be coming from Venice and will be going to Lake Garda after our Dolomite segment. We have reservations and are planning to stay in Castelrotto but I am wondering if any of you have another suggestion? We will be doing some hiking and are very interested in the beautiful scenery. Other than that, we plan to chill out and watch the mountains. Castelrotto seems lovely but very overrun. Any suggestions are welcome.
Grazie.
I would suggest driving north on E70 out of Venice,
Turn left on A23 going past Udine.
Turn left on SS52 and follow it to the end (Lorenzago di Cadore).
Turn left and the road will take you to Cortina d'Ambrezzo. The roads previously mentioned will take you through the heart of the Dolomites, and the scenery is absolutely incredible.
Go west of Cortina (toward Bolzano) and you'll pickup the autostrada E45/A22 that will go south to Verona.
Go past Verona and you'll find Lake Garda northwest of that fine city.
This would be a couple of days' trip.
I prefer Ortisei in the Val Gardena to Kastelruth. Actually I prefer the whole Val Gardena.
But for some reason Rick Steves advertises Kastelruth, so everybody who follows Rick Steves wants to go there. Kastelruth is not even technically on the Dolomites. In any case, Kastelruth is only 20 min. drive from Ortisei, so you can still visit it, if you want.
Thank you both. We will likely do this drive from Venice. We were in Verona last year so we will probably skip it this time. After Lake Garda we are headed to Montalcino for five days.
Roberto I took your advice on an earlier post and we are staying in Limone Sul Garda.
Grazie Mille!
We love Ortisei and the Val Gardena. If you only have two nights and want to "watch the mountains," consider staying up in the Alpe di Siusi at Hotel Saltria or Hotel Panorama. You will experience the complete peace of the mountains at night and in the morning, and you can take a lift right outside your door to beautiful hiking spots, either ambitious or easy. The hotels are half-board so dinner and breakfast are included. Makes for a resort-like stay that is very relaxing. Get a Val Gardena pass so your lifts/buses are included. You can drive into your hotel (if you come by car) and park for the duration. This itinerary is also possible by public transportation. PM me if you need info on public trans.
We drove from Venice into the Dolomites for 2 nights at the very end of August 2013 just as you will do this September. We followed the exact route that Roberto laid out for you (both going into the Dolomites and driving from the Dolomites towards the west). We stayed in a different town/hotel each night because we did not want to backtrack at all since I'm prone to severe motion sickness and I didn't want to spend more time than I had to in the car backtracking to our hotel the 2nd night. The first night we stayed in La Villa/Alta Badia at a wonderful hotel. This area is a fairly large ski resort area and we enjoyed it.
The second night we stayed in Castelrotto at Hotel Cavallino d'Oro and enjoyed it as well though it was a totally different experience. Castelrotto seemed to be a much smaller and quaint town. We enjoyed it as well and both towns made for easy stops along our route. You said that Castelrotto "seems lovely but very overrun" but I didn't find this to be the case at all. It didn't seem "overrun" by tourists in my opinion and it didn't seem very crowded when we were there...in fact the town seemed to close up by 9pm. Most of the shops were closed and we had to search for an open gelateria for our nightcap after dinner!
I think you will love the Dolomites no matter where you stay and trust me, 2 days will barely whet your appetite and if you are like me, you will long to return again. I could have easily spent a week in the Dolomites region. Have a great trip!
I edited the itinerary above, so I included both Ortisei and Kastelruth and also Limone sul Garda.
All 3 would make nice places to stop for the night.
It's a loop that will keep you busy for a couple of days (almost 600km, or 375 miles, in total).
If you want to have some fun before you go; go to the library or to Netflix (If you belong) and get an old movie called Rome Adventure starring Troy Donohue and introducing Suzanne Pleshette. In it he takes her on a tour of northern Italy in which he announces "I'm going to take you to the top of the world." In reality, I checked the Hollywood shooting script and it was actually shot in the Dolemites specifically several scenes in Ortesei. We went to Ortesei and visited the town and church where the movie was shot. Truly beautiful country. If you do get the movie, he takes her via cable car to a certain location - unfortunately when we were there it was not open until mid-June so you could, time permitting, take this cable car to the actual top of the Dolemites. You WILL have a nice time in this area of Italy; the scenery is breathtaking.
Good luck - Richard
Thank you Richard. I will be sure to watch that movie. It will be a fun at home date night in this seemingly endless winter weather. :-)
We actually took the advice of previous posters and we are going to Ortisei. I am really looking forward to this leg of our trip.
Thanks pretty much to Laurel, Roberto, and your question April, we too are going to Ortisei for a few days on our way between Bologna, Bolzano, and Vienna. Although it will be early June, there seems to be enough open and going on. What's more, we're looking forward to the activities offered by Val Gardena Active.
