Help planning my trip - Dolomites

My enquiry was for the dolomites in Italy :) I am hoping to finish bookings this week.

You may get more responses if you click on Edit in your original post and add Dolomites to the title. We have some people on the forum with considerable travel experience in that area, but they may not open your thread, assuming it's a question about Venice-Florence-Cinque Terre-Rome.

Websites like wunderground.com and timeanddate.com are not limited to weather statistics for just a few places. You should be able to get stats for Castelrotto in the Alto Adige, probably also for Ortisei, which is frequently recommended on this forum. Look at June data going back several years.

I have read here that Italy has had a very cool spring. I don't know whether that has turned around yet, and I don't know what hiking conditions are currently like (muddy?). However, there are lots of easy hikes in the Dolomites. Just don't attempt anything crazy or anything for which you don't have proper footwear. The major towns have tourist information offices that can give you up-to-date, on-the-spot recommendations.

I would never set out on a trip including destinations at altitude without a warm layer of some sort (fleece, merino wool, puffer jacket, etc.) and a waterproof layer.

On average, the temperature drops 3 degrees for every 1,000 ft altitude gained.

Thanks acraven , did that . Also I am wondering of those hikes are even for us considering we are hiking up that kind of elevation. Dont want to get stuck half way through a hike and it becomes too late in the evening , with no help close by. Any kind of insight into the hiking there would be helpful. THe longest hike we have done so far was the 11 miles in Santorini last year and it was the highlight of our trip , so were all the hikes there ofcourse.
So, I would need to take layers , say waterproof and a thick jacket . We are restricted by luggage and cant get heavy jackets with us .

Thanks Kb1942 , how high do you think i would hike if I did one of those 5 hr circular hikes ? Does it start out hot tho ?

Is this for next year or are you traveling in a few days? I suggest getting on top of booking rooms right away if this is for this year. I was in Bolzano a few weeks ago and took the lift up to Oberbozen and the small train to the next town as Rick suggested. I hiked several trails from there and it was very nice, not spectacular. It was too early for Casterotto/Alpe di Siusi by about a week. The hikinh there is said to be on a whole other level. Rick's coverage of this area is pretty good, it does not sound as if you need to be an expert mountaineer at all to hike in this area. I think there is much more to the Dolomites than he covers though, and lonely planet might be a good one to pick up as well. If you are barely a week away from traveling and don't have a guide book yet, get one or two right away. Two days for this area sounds short to me. I took the train to Brixen/Bressanone and did not find it to be that small of a town. Bolzano in the city center fills like a much smaller city than it is. I highly recommend it, i just loved this stop. A car would not be be useful there though, quite the opposite. With a car I might look into taking the Brenner pass into Austria. I was on the train so no direct knowledge but it seemed like a lot of traffic on that road, so probably do-able. You don't say what else you are going to do with your two weeks. I found Varenna on Lake Como was an excellent stop, but here too a car would be a liability. But from that area it might also be possible to venture into Switzerland.

We are actually leaving in a week :). THanks for taking the time to help me , we love to hike and love scenic locations. We arrive in Milan on the 9th 10 pm (hotel in milan), drive to dolomites next morning .
June 10-12 dolomites
June 12-14 Venice
June 14-16 Cinque terre
June 16-17 tuscany / pisa
June 17-20 .. we would like to explore amalfi coast(stay in positano), capri for a daytrip,
20-22 Rome , fly out on 22nd 8 am flight

We plan on renting a car all through a trip , not sure which of these places would pose a challenge to that .

We have a schengen visa and we only mentioned italy on our itinerary and dont want to go to other countries cause I am not sure how the authorities would take to that .

You are staying in each place for only two nights.
That is do-able but there is little rest.
Also, you will spend a half day traveling every two days. That will be one fourth of your time spent traveling.
I'd drop at least one location.

I was recently at the Amalfi coast.
I'd say "choose Amalfi or CT, then drop the other"

Good point, thanks .. if the places are kind of similar we should probably skip cinque terre .

Really, something has to go. Maybe two somethings. You appear to have mere hours for Tuscany.

Go to viamichelin.com to check your approximate driving times. Add extra time for stopping, getting lost, looking for parking, etc.

Edited to add: The historic centers of many European towns and cities are pedestrianized. It would be a mistake to assume you'll be able to park the car a block from what you want to see.