Hiking in the Italian Alps

Do you mean the Italian Alps, or the Dolomites? Both offer great hiking, but they are different.

When you say Northern Italy, where exactly will you be? That might help shape the answers.

The Dolomites east of Bolzano (in the Südtirol region mentioned by joanne above) is probably your best choice if you are traveling by train. It is a little easier to get there from Munich than form Zürich, but not bad from Zürich either. Either way, train via Innsbruck and south to Bolzano. From there you travel by the excellent bus system.

There is fantastuc hiking all around the area, but for ease of access to day hikes consider staying either up on Alpe di Siusi or in one of the villages in the Val Gardena. With a week, you could stay 3 nights in each place.

Alpe di Siusi is a huge meadow ringed by mountains, and offers a variety of hikes (as well as bicycle and horseback-riding). There isn't really a village up there, just a collection of hotels, so it is very quiet at night. Best to take half-board at your hotel.

Val Gardena has several villages from which you could choose. Most of the hikes from there would involve riding a lift up, doing a loop hike or hike to another lift, and riding back down. It's all good.

If you wanted to include some hiking in Switzerland, you could take the Bernina Express train and stop around Pontresina for a few days, then continue to Tirano and connect to Bolzano for the Dolomites. This option would have you spending quite a bit more time on trains, but would offer some variety.

When I referred to northern Italy, I was not sure as to where the best to spend the time hiking. We only want to do day hikes and either in the Dolomites or the Alps. We had originally considered starting in Switzerland and then traveling to Rome but then considered just staying somewhere in Italy to hike. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Jim

Jim - I'm interested to hear what others have to say as well...my brother and I will only be there for 2 days but want to get out and hike some. We've decided on Bergamo as the place we'll be staying, but I really don't know how close that is to the Alps or if there are any good hiking trails nearby.

The Sudtirol (what a bit of heaven): You can contact the local TI and they will mail you a ton of info for free. Including hikes, hut to hut hikes and stays, castle tours, bike rentals, etc. The web site was www.kastelruth.com the e-mail was info@hallo.com I guess both of those are still good. If you have the time and ability to go hut to hut, do so, it will be the trip of a life time. I would try to arrange bag/luggage storage with what ever hotel your planning on staying the first and/or last night. That way you can just carry the bare minimum. Most of the local hotels have ski lockers/rooms and will allow you to store your stuff while you hike. Good luck to all. Joanne

Dolomites are superb,.
Maybe do some of the via ferattas.
I stayd at Sesto/Sexten.Lots of accomodation , hiker heaven