Blogs from Val Gardena, Trentino Alto Adige, Italy, Europe

It poured down over night and cleared for the day. It appears that the Val gets 300 fine days out of 365. That is pretty amazing given that it's 1500m absl and amongst mountains. I'd been saving the last day to visit Bulla and do the GeoTrail that I had read about so we got the Summer Bus along the valley and up onto the Plateau where the small hamlet of Bulla is. The walk is a loop but because of the bus time tables we decided to start at Bulla and work our way down on the top route down to the Passo Pinei. The trail gives an insight into the evolution of the Val Gardena and the Dolomites. At several places along the trail there are panels giving information on the geological strata in ... read more

Today was a guessing game of what we were going to do from Selva/Wolkenstein. It gets a bit confusing with the place names as they use Laden, Italian and German names. Selva seems to be the accepted name here for Wolkenstein. Now we have discovered the fancy tunnel and escalator it was a quick trip down to the bus station where we got the Selva bus. We had no idea where to get off and figured that we could have stayed on for another stop. We wanted to get the gondola up to the Gardena Pass which gives access into another valley after twisting it's way up to the Pass. We found the street to the gondola which meant walking uphill to find the hidden seilbahn station. It's all quite straight forward when you know what ... read more

Our goal today was to walk in the Alpe di Siusi above Ortisei. We walked down to the village and went by the gondola (holds 15 people a car) straight up the steep mountain face from 1236m to 2005m. From the valley you would have no idea what a beautiful panorama awaits when you step out of the gondola. The Alpe di Siusi is the largest cultivated plateau in Central Europe and is 50 square kilometres in size. It fills a slightly dipping plateau with a drop off to the valley on one side and soaring jagged mountains on the other sides. It is green, farmed and has many walking tracks in all directions. I have never seen so many walkers in one place at one time but they were spread out so it didn't feel ... read more

We were up early this morning to get Daphne onto a train to Geneva at 7.30 which meant leaving Annone Veneto at 7.00am. We have enjoyed having Daphne as company and hope to meet with her again sometime in the future. It was also farewell to our Italian cousins for who knows how long. As always, we have been superbly cared for over the past week and will remember the pleasure of attending the wedding, getting ourselves around the Veneto region and having to communicate in gibberish Italian, for better or worse. We got there and fully appreciate the hospitality shown to us. Our destination in the morning was to Cortina d'Ampezzo where we were to meet Graham and Claudia for a catchup. The area had had thunderstorms so their trip to Tre Cima was put ... read more

Après avoir vu les montagnes slovènes, nous nous sommes dirigés vers les montagnes italiennes, appelées "les dolomites". Ainsi, 6 ans plus tard, nous faisions notre grand retour en Italie! Après notre expérience à Bled où il ne faisait pas beau souvent, on a décidé de s'accorder beaucoup de temps dans ces montagnes au cas où il y aurait des journées où on ne pourrait rien faire. On a donc réservé 5 nuits dans un petit hôtel du village de Selva Di Val Gardena. Un hôtel fraîchement rénové avec des fenêtres récentes donc, super silencieux ouais !! En arrivant en auto, on voit les montagnes géantes à nos côtés, il y en a plein! Mais aussi, plein de gondoles?remonte-pente pour monter jusqu'en haut (car l'hiver il y a du ski). Je n'ai jamais vu autant de gondoles ... read more