“If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.”: August 2012

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.

Tre Cime di Lavaredo region - the route arount Tre Cime

The Auronzo shelter

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.

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 :)

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.

Visited shelters: Brentei, Tucket, Casinei

Brentei shelter

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/