This
year’s vacation we (as family) decided to spend actively in the mountains. We
chose the Dolomites in Italy - we spent some winter vacation in these mountains,
but now we decided to visit this beautiful area in summer time. I divided our
trip into three parts – two in the mountains and one in Venice (as always we wanted
to visit interesting city like Florence or Barcelona in previous years). The first
four days we spent near Bruneck (Italian Brunico) in small town called Villa Ottone, in
very nice family hotel Reichegger www.reichegger.com . Very good cuisine (five course) and
marvellous atmosphere are identification sign of this place.
It is
Alto Adige/Suedtirol region – very interesting with complicated history – you
can feel it around you – all around is mixture of two cultures – Austrian and
Italian.
Our first
meeting with the mountains was trip to Spikeboden peak, the highest peak in
this region (2527 m), http://www.speikboden.it/news/news-e.php?jahreszeit=sommer. It was first and last time during
our stay that we used the lift to get to the top (Speikboden Aplm 2000m). It is very
nice route of medium difficulty (4 and the half hour) to achieve Spikeboden and return
to the lift.
Thanks
to Lenka, a very nice girl from Slovakia we had met in the hotel, we went to The Tre Cime
di Lavaredo (German: Drei Zinnen) area. It is a very famous place
in the Dolomites and very often is shown in postcards and pictures from this region.
It is definitely a place worth seeing – I am short of words to describe beauty of
landscape we saw during our trip around the Three Peaks Mountains.The entrance to Natural Park costs 22 Euro per car and includes a fare for a car park near Auronzo chalet.
There
are different routes in this place - we chose 5 hours Tre Cime Route from
Auronzo chalet through Lavaredo chalet, up to Locatelli shelter and later using
105 path to Forcella Col di Mezzo and finally returned to Auronzo chalet. It route of medium difficulty with marvellous views. No
special equipment is required.
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| Tre Cime di Lavaredo region - the route arount Tre Cime |
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| The Auronzo shelter |
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| The Tre Cime Mountains |
Next we made short break from the mountains and spent
two nights in Venice (strictly speaking in Mestre in nice hotel with easy
access to Venice by bus - quidhotelvenice.com). It was my third time in Venice – honestly speaking I don’t recommend
this place to visit in summer – a lot of tourists and the natives who have
enough of them (honestly speaking I was not surprised). One full day was enough
for us and we went to the next place.
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| The lake niear Cortina d'Ampezzo |
We
started from Venice and with short break on Garda Lake shore we returned to the mountains. We stayed at nice hotel called Caminetto (www.caminettohotel.it)
in Folgarida (village
is located near Madonna Di Campilio). The hotel was very good with delicious
Italian cuisine (we chose half board option). Hotel had big jacuzzi and some saunas and we always used them to rest after hiking. By the way – we were first the Poles in this hotel :)
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| The hotel Caminetto |
Folgarida
is located in Adamello Branta National Park http://www.pnab.it/en.html – it is a very good starting
point for trips into the mountains – there are a lot of nice valleys, lakes and
peaks to visit. Domenico, a guide from the hotel, recommended a very interesting route from Valesinella
valley to us.
From
Valesinella we went to Casinei chalet (1825m), next was Brentei chalet (2182m).
It is a very good point for all who want to hike via ferrata http://www.dolomitidibrentain.it/rifugi/brentei.htm . Our next target was Tucket shelter (2275m) http://www.rifugio-tuckett.it . The next path led back to Cainei shelter and back to
Vallesinelaa. All trip took us nearly 8 hours - we didn't have required equipment
to walk via ferrata, so we used route of medium difficulty.
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| Visited shelters: Brentei, Tucket, Casinei |
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| Brentei shelter |
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| Brentei shelter |
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| Tucket shelter |
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| Tucket shelter |
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| Tucket shelter |
As I
mentioned in Brenta Adamello area there are a lot of interesting valleys – Val Genova is one of them. It
is very popular and worth seeing due to waterfalls: http://www.valgenova.com/
Photos from my trip to Italy are also on this website: https://picasaweb.google.com/108283434861433522451/Wakacje2012DolomityWenecja#
Interesting
websites about Dolomities:
http://www.campigliodolomiti.it
http://www.pnab.it/
www.dolomitibrentatrek.it
dolomity.pl/
www.wdolomitach.pl/dol.html
www.visittrentino.it/pl/cosa_fare/da_vedere
http://www.summitpost.org/dolomites/150874
