Getting to Dolomites from Venice

Rent a car in Venice (Piazzale. roma) and drive. Then return the car in Milan. A car is the most efficient way to visit the Dolomites.
I find it curious that Americans, the most car addicted people on Earth, somehow don't want to touch a car whenever they go overseas. And Italians drive on the right side of the road too.

For renting cars:
www.kemwel.com
www.autoeurope.com
www.gemut.com

Get no deductible insurance (aka "no insurance excess")

With that much time you should go an hour beyond Bolzano to the Val Gardena. Spectacular.

Hi Jo,

We took a train from Venice to Verona to Trento. Next to the Trento train station is the bus station for a bus to Moena. Lovely scenery on the way & gorgeous Val di Fassa area with small villages to walk to or take a bus. Both of us really enjoyed our time there.

We stayed at Hotel Monza - wonderful hosts and great views. There's hotels bunched together in town, but we preferred this location which is a quick stroll from downtown. Local friendly ladies would be sitting together in front of their homes, and you have a perfect view just above their town church. This hotel had a half board which was breakfast & dinner included in the price, so we had the opportunity to experience a lot of their local food.

I agree with renting a car to see the Dolomites. Driving the alpine/Dolomite passes are some of the most spectaular drives. Head from Venice to Cortina and then west into the gorgeous Alta Badia, where you'll see some of the most quintessential Dolomite scenery. We absolutely loved our 2 stays at the Ciasa Montanara in La Villa, Alta Badia. I'd spend at least 3 nights here.
www.montanara.it

www.flickr.com/photos/pjbassplyr/sets

From here you could easily drive to the Vinschgau/Val Venosta area, which is just west of Meran/Merano. Beautiful alpine scenery (not like the "Dolomite" scenery), orchards, cute villages and towns (incl. the small medieval walled town of Glurns/Glorenza) and castles, plenty of castles. Then maybe head to Lake Como and then Milan?

Paul

I also would rent a car for more schedule freedom, access to more destinations, and no backtracking to public transport hubs. If you were going for two days, then a quick train ride to Bolzano would make sense, but with 12 days, you have time to see much more. There is normally no significant price difference to pick up and drop a car in different cities within Italy.

Thanks everyone I think your right, why wouldn't we think about renting a car? True what Roberto said...we drive all over here, whats the difference. Great pics Paul, beautiful!

Thanks Jo! IF you consider visitng the Vinschgau/Val Venosta, we can recommend the Bio Hotel Panorama in Mals/Malles (Sud Tirol, Italy). The rooms come with half board, so you get an excellent breakfast buffet and a four course gourmet dinner. I believe te and pastries are served/avail. during the afternoon (also included in the room price).

Paul

And the steering wheel and controls are on the left side of the car too, just like here.

The roads in Northern Italy are very well paved and marked well. We didn't even carry a road map or have a GPS on our last trip there.

You can see very good maps on Googlemaps.com and Mapquest.com. Just put in travel from Venice to Cortina d'Ampezzo and it'll show you a map and give you directions. It's about 100 miles.

If you want to see more incredible scenery, go east on A23, past Udine, and northwest at Tolmezzo. The road will take you to the Cortina area via more scenery.

There is direct bus service from Venice to Cortina. An advantage of taking the bus is that everyone gets to see the scenery.

http://www.cortinaexpress.it/?lang=en

What time of year are you planning to go?

We will be leaving Venice on Sept. 12 and flying out of Milan on Sept 22. After taking the bus to Cortina what would be the best way to work our way to Bolzano and back to Milan? We're thinking maybe we could stop a few nights in Desenzano -Lake Garda too. We really like the German/Italian areas, foods etc and we did get that reasonable flight r/t to Milan so thats why our plan sounds a little crazy. Thanks for helping we do like the idea of the bus to Cortina

Jo,

I drove from Austria down to Val Gardena and found the roads to be very do-able. After we left Val Gardena we had to drop off my son so he could take the train back to Salzburg (he was a student there) and so we went down A22 to Bolzano and then stayed on the autostrada south of the mountains and drove around to Venice, very easy driving on the autostrada (interstate highway). By taking this route we avoided most of the stressful driving over the mountains, some people like it that way some don't. Val Gardena has a great website about the villages there, we visited in October and the weather was great. Be aware that in the Val Gardena and Dolomite area many of the cities and roads go by ***both Italian names and Austrian* names**, it is somewhat confusing. With a bit of research before hand you can avoid some confusing turns! An example is we stayed at Selva di Val Gardena and it is also known as Wolkenstein. We stayed at Residence Risaccia apartment in Selva Di Val Gardena and it was great. Make sure you pay attention to local name differences for diesel fuel and regular gasoline for your rental (hard lesson learned)

Thanks to everyone for all the helpful suggestions on planning our trip.