My Way Alpine Europe Tour Question

Hi:

We took this tour in 2022 & stayed in that hotel in Bolzano. Our tour manager arranged for the bus driver to take all those interested directly to the gondola in the morning & helped us all buy tickets. On the way there, she showed us where to catch the bus back to Bolzano. It was probably less than a 5 minute walk to the bus stop from the gondola area.

I wouldn't buy tickets ahead of time (from home), as you won't want to go up if the weather is bad. Maybe online a day or two before if the weather report looks good. We had an iffy day but quite a few in the group bought tickets anyways & went up. The weather very quickly changed & became stormy & very windy. Then came the thunder & lightning. It probably sounds like an over reaction, but I honestly thought we were going to be struck by lightning. The storm came up when we were in a very open area & it was just as far to go back as to keep going, so we kept on. We finally made it to a mountain hut serving food & found several others of our group waiting out the storm. We had a very delicious lunch & friendly company while we waited. When it seemed like a break in the storm, we all headed down as fast as we could. It was a cold & wet bus ride back to Bolzano, and this was in August! I was never so grateful for a hot shower!

Try to make sure you're better prepared than we were. We had rain jackets, but could have used a fleece layer underneath.

The hotel is a short walk from the South Tirol Museum & we were able to see Otzi the IceMan. The tour manager helped the group purchase tickets for this as well, as we were unable to purchase online ahead of time.

We very much enjoyed this tour. Happy Travels!

TinaC - Thank you very much for your reply and helpfully answering both of my questions. Sometimes the unexpected gives us the best memories to look back on. Thanks for sharing.

We have friends on this tour in June and they were concerned that they would have to make a choice between hiking and seeing the Ice Man. I’m glad to see a response that says they were able to do both.

I didn't take the tour but I just returned from the Dolomites. The Bus station is 50 yards north of the train station and had excellent signage for different routes. The buses go everywhere! The weather advice is excellent, several seasons a day in my experience.

Back again regarding the South Tirol Museum/Otzi the Iceman:

We never could reserve a time from home for the 1 afternoon we could visit. I mentioned this to the tour manager at the 1st meeting. She got a count of the tour members who were interested & reserved a group time for us on our arrival afternoon in Bolzano. After the orientation walk, she took us to the museum as the "group leader". We were able to go to the group ticket window & each party was able to pay for their tickets separately. We then went through the museum on our own.

Margie: Your friends may want to check with the tour manager if they are unable to get tickets on their own. Maybe they can do the group ticket reservation for their group in there is enough interest.

We thought it was great museum! Small, but very well laid out. I think we went through in about an hour.