Lagazuoi - Rifugio - WWI Open Air Museum -Experiences?

You have to get to Passo Falzarego and go up with the cable car. The rifugio is near the top station of the cable car. Up the cable car the landscape is almost lunar and still shows the scars of the war - Italians blew off a whole mountain with explosives to dislodge Austrian soldiers from the top of it. What is strange is that Austrians held both the pass where the cable car starts and the top where the cable arrives, while Italians quickly conquered a tiny strip in the middle of the almost vertical mountain wall - and in four years of fights Austrians were not able to dislodge them. The museum, if I correctly understand, is not a museum at all; trenches, paths and caves have been cleaned and maintained for visit; some war tunnels (mainly used to bring mines) have been reopened for visit. For an extensive tour you would need more an Alpine guide than a guided tour.

I have visited the place several times in the eighties when I was young. At the time maintenance work had just begun and you just had to step off the marked trails to find some WWI relic - an old shoe or a bomb splinter.

There is still an elicoidal (corkscrew) tunnel that is what is remaining from the main tunnel dug by Italians to arm the mine and blow off the mountain. You can walk down to the pass through the tunnel but this is best reserved to experienced hikers with adequate mountain boots, helmets with headlights and protective gloves; the tunnel is very steep, dark and humid. There should be also an easier trail descending to the pass. Still good boots and good legs needed - remember that long descending trails are only marginally less strenuous than long ascents.

In general, there is not much to visit if you are not a little fit and adequately equipped. But even if you stick to the immediate surroundings of the top cable car station, the trip is one of the most scenic in the whole Dolomites.

Thanks for this detail, I am unsure if your description makes me want to do this more or less...

1. How to get to Falzarego from Ortisei, that is the real question. Am I changing from the Alto-Adige to Veneto, perhaps this is why I don't see easy bus service?

2. Past the Rifugio, how hard is the hike if I want to at least see the neat sites that come up with google search "Lagazuoi Open Air Museum"... https://www.google.com/search?q=lagazuoi+museum&client=safari&rls=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=pWVSVbTgFoWryQSTqoCACQ&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAg&biw=1379&bih=681

3. Finally, we are able bodied people in our 30s, but not exactly hikers. Were not planning to bring boots. Do you recommend we try and see a BIT of this in our sneakers?

You need to check with Cortina Tourism about summer bus schedules, but in winter skiers use it all the time to access ski runs in the valley south of there, plus the cable car to do the Lagazuoi valley ski run to San Cassiano. You might have to hire a cab.

Since you are coming from Ortisei, look into renting a car for the day. All I can see from the www.suedtirolmobil.info is 3 or 4 bus connection, and that only gets you as far as San Cassiano several miles below the pass.

Sorry to disappoint you, but I am not sure that the trip from Ortisei to Falzarego is possible by scheduled buses. In spite of the places being close as the bird flies, we are no birds and all possible routes are by long and curvy roads with unfrequent bus services needing so many connections that search engines are not able to find solutions. I suspect the only way to do the trip without a car - and even with a car is a long trip - would be with a tour on a chartered bus. Often mountain villages have local buses offering several tour possibilities on a weekly calendar, try to ask to the local tourist info office.

I don't know how really hard is the hike - when I visited the place the museum idea was still embryonal - just wandering around the top station is possible and it would not be too hard on your legs if you do not get too distant. Some sections look better left to people with some experience or even ferrata equipment (helmets for entering grottoes, carabiners for securing to cables).

Personally, I never encourage using sneakers on mountain trails. Sneakers may be adequate for bottom-of-the-valley roads (mostly paved) and flat trails. As soon as the terrain gets rocky, sneakers are uncomfortable at best or plainly dangerous at worst. I know that a lot of people ventures on mountain tracks with sneakers, but they do it at their own risk. I have photos of myself walking positively hair-rising trails at age six, but always with adequate boots and a safety rope.

For example, a very possible hike from Ortisei could be bus to Passo Sella and take the cable car to the fork in the middle of the twin peaks of Sassolungo. Almost nothing to do up there but incredible landscape. You can descend to the base station, either directly or, better, making a round trip around the Sassolungo peak. But there are long sections of descent in the middle of gravel rubble and without sturdy shoes you may find the thing simply too tiring on your legs.

Thanks Sam and asps for your tips. We are unlikely to rent a car for this - I wonder if it would be worth it to hire a taxi for the trip from Ortisei to Falzarego Pass (this might be expensive, but so is renting a car)

I am mostly intrigued by the WWI stuff. Of course there are good mild hikes for us city folk, in the area immediately around Ortisei. That will satisfy our hiking desires otherwise.

Well, Ortisei was well behind the front. The only reminder of war is the small military railway built in great haste by war prisoners and decommissioned in the sixties. There is still a monument steam engine in Ortisei and you can walk on the former path of the railway. If you are serious into WWI, the Cortina area is the place to go. Cortina itself was not a fighting area, but all the mountains around Cortina were. The Lagazuoi, Mt. Piana (a flat mountain, quite easy to hike, almost entirely covered with trenches), the Valparola area, Col di Lana. A car is needed, some military roads are still open but would need a jeep.

I assume you mean the Dobbiaco - Cortina railway (decomissioned in '63) which is well east of Ortisei. Yes, that path was also on my list of things to do. We may have to return to this region another time to hit all the marks. I hoped Ortisei was a convenient enough place to reach from the main rail artery, only later did I find out through my research that these other attractions exist.

No, Ortisei and the Gardena valley had their own railway, built by Austrians at the very beginning of WWI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUSwmRUMUfs
The narrow gauge railroad was built to haul materials to the front past the Sella Pass, using mainly work by war prisoners, ran from Chiusa/Klausen up to Plan, where materials were transferred to freight cable cars. To hasten the building most bridges were in wood and lately rebuilt in iron. The railway was considered quite an engineering feat, considered how small it was. Austrians ran "train platoons" - five or six small trains running in the same direction at short intervals, to minimize train meets.

After WWI the region was turned to Italy and the railway used mainly as a passenger one: it worked till the sixties when buses were deemed to be more practical.

The path of the former railway has been turned into trails in the upper part of the valley (it is very evident, for example, just back Ortisei's main church); the lower section of the railway has been enlarged to turn it into the present access road to Chiusa and the Brenner highway.

Aha! Thanks for the clarification!