Booking buses in the Dolomites
 

I understand that one must book certain buses in the Dolomites in the high season. Does anyone know specifically which dates are considered 'high season' and how I find out which buses need to be booked, and how far in advance?

We will be staying in four areas of the Dolomites from third week of September through mid-October.

Your time in the Dolomites is not during high season, but I'd be concerned that off-season bus frequency wouldn't be conducive to sightseeing.... But we've always had a car and have little experience with bus routes/services.

If you're staying in hotels anywhere, you might ask them for advice.

Local buses must never be booked ahead. There exist, however, buses from Milan, Brescia, Verona, Venice as well as from airports to several places in the provinces of Bolzano, Trento and Belluno. These buses are better booked ahead, above all in August (high season in Italy). These buses will most probably not run in automn (low season).

neckervd - I've read that some buses, such as the bus to Lago Di Braies needs to be booked - that's a local bus, no?

Jean - we traveled by bus in the Dolomites in December. We've researched bus transport between towns for our upcoming trip which isn't an issue, but it's been near impossible to get information on local buses, especially as many mountain passes are still closed so it's hard to do a search. We've planned our itinerary based on what cable cars will be open in a given area, so we're hoping buses will still be running to them as well. I plan to reach out to the various tourist offices to verify.

So far, the only area we have concerns about from a closure standpoint is Colfosco.

Mel, we took the bus to Lago di Brais and didn’t book it. But that was 2019.

Attachment 8906
You are right, tickets for Prags and Pragser Wildsee must be booked ahead for the period from July 10th until Sept 10th.
Probably because of the hordes of foreign tourists who absolutely want to see this lake (made popular in Italy too by the movie "Un Passo dal Cielo").
IMO it's by far not the nicest mountain lake.
This exception is clealy stated in the official timetable of Suedtirol Mobil, however.
https://www.suedtirolmobil.info/en/m...ney/timetables

Thank you neckervd, that's very helpful. Looks like the 'high season' is pretty short, so we'll probably not need to book any buses. We're hoping we miss the hordes of tourists, as not arriving until later in Sept, but we'd also like to visit at a time of year that we can fit in more hiking. While we had a great time in December, hiking was rather limited for obvious reasons.

It seems many buses aren't listed on the SudTirol site, which we'd already looked at and had used extensively in December, which is why we're confused a bit. We've gotten spoiled by Switzerland, where it's a breeze to plan!

neckervd - perhaps you can answer this for us...we're looking at buses from Colfosco to Cortina, which is just under an hour if driving, but the SudTirol website keeps routing us through Bruneck and Toblach, which takes close to three. Any idea what this is about?

I hope neckervd finds a solution, because I’m lost too.

You’ve obviously found this, but for the benefit of others:

This site suggests using a combination of the Sud Tirol app and Dolomiti timetable

https://www.south-tirol.com/useful-i...on/dolomitibus


https://www.moonhoneytravel.com/dolo...without-a-car/ only mentions Dolomiti bus between the 2.

The bus from Corvara/ Colfosco you want will route via Falzarego Pass.

This is a list of all the bus routeshttps://www.suedtirolmobil.info/en/m...ney/timetables

scroll to route 465 to ‘sommerfahrplan’ (up to13 October)

Remember the destinations are on both side of the schedule in the different languages.


Corvara to Falzarego timetable looks like this



https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fod...0cb9e81396.png



But, as you found out, it’s the next leg that’s tricky. In high season, you would then change bus to Cortina bus 30, I think?

or there’s the Cortina Express

https://www.cortinaexpress.it/en/timetable/

but it seems to be a very short window of seasonal travel, I can’t find a late September timetable for that either.

September is such a beautiful season, surely there is a late summer option.

Last year, there were buses until Sept 12th Attachment 8908
I suppose that it will be more or less the same this year.

BTW: he Tonale Pass (Tirano - Edolo - Trento) and the Falzarego Pass timetables are best hidden one's of the whole area.

Adelaidean and neckervd - thank you both.

This trip is giving us a serious head cramp, especially Colfosco. We'll be there from Sept 28-Oct 4. I'm rather surprised that the area has such a short summer season, at least from a bus transport standpoint. Also because the cable cars in Cortina run until 10/6 and 10/20.

We'd hoped to visit Cortina from Colfosco, but may have to visit from San Candido instead (no problem with transport from there). Had I known, I'd have booked a sixth night in San Candido instead of six in Colfosco; but it looks like we can do most of what we'd planned from Colfosco, and have no shortage of things to see and do.

We'd rather not rent a car, but may be forced to, at least for a portion of the trip. We'd need to head to Bolzano from Brixen, pick up a car, then head to Colfosco, then return it to Bolzano before continuing on to Vipiteno. Argh...

The good news...I finally found a nice place to stay in Colfosco.

Full itinerary:

Arrive Munich - two nights
Solden, Austria - five nights
Brixen, Italy - five nights
Colfosco, Italy - six nights
Vipiteno, Italy - five nights
San Candido - five nights
Kufstein, Austria - five nights
Depart Munich

"We'd rather not rent a car, but may be forced to, at least for a portion of the trip. We'd need to head to Bolzano from Brixen, pick up a car, then head to Colfosco, then return it to Bolzano before continuing on to Vipiteno"
Sorry, but I don't understand anything.
When I read your post 11, I suppose that you will leave Soelden around Sept 13th by bus at 9.00, change at Obergurgl to th local bus dp 9.35 and at Timmelsjoch to the 10.00 SAD Bus up to Merano ar 12.06 and on by train dp 12.16 to Brixen ar 13.32.
Then you will move to Colfosch/Kolfuschg/Colfosco, either via Urtijei/St. Ulrich/Ortisei or via Bruneck/Bornich/Brunico.
From Bruneck you will go down the Pustertal up to Franzensfeste and change there to a connecting train to Sterzing/Vipiteno.
Then you will backtrack up to Bruneck and go on to Toblach - Innichen. Finally you change into the Austrian part of Tyrol and reach Kufstein via Lienz - bus - Kitzbuhel - train -Woergl.

All that is easy to do by public transport. Therefore I don't see why you need a car.

We'd discussed a rental car only because it seems we're unable to get from Colfosco to Cortina by bus in late September/early October. We'd planned on visiting Cortina once or twice from Colfosco, and have booked an extra night there for this reason.

We're aware we can get everywhere else by train/bus.

I think we've decided to visit Cortina from San Candido instead, which solves the problem. In retrospect, I should have added a extra night there, but I don't want to do it now as we're all booked and I don't want to rock the boat.

We leave Solden on Sept 23.

We'd originally planned to visit Vipiteno before Brixen, but switched the order due to apartment availability, and it seemed to make little difference in the overall itinerary.

We also visited Cortina while in San Candido, there were buses in September.

And from Bressanone, the bus connections to val Badia were seamless and shorter via St Lorenzen in val Pusteria than via Ortisei in val Gardena.

Good to know, thanks Adelaidean.

I agree: The Pustertal itinerary is shorter and that via Val Gherdeina - Pass Gherdeina/Groednerjoch is nicer

Thanks neckervd, I think we've finally got it all sorted.

Falzarego: it seems to me that the main attractions of this itinerary are the WW1 Open air museums. If you hike to most of these places, you will have no more time for Cortina anyway
https://cortinadelicious.it/EN/p55-T...penAir-Museums https://cortinadelicious.it/Doc/Pdf/mappa-musei.pdf
So frankly: I cannot see where is the problem, Spend 1 day in WW1 at Falzaregopass and another day at Cortina (by bus from Toblach via Schluderbach and may be Misurina).

"We leave Solden on Sept 23."
There will probably be no bus between Hochgurgl and the Italian border so late in the year.
https://www.gurgl.com/summer/hiking-...immel-bus.html
But I wonder whether it would not make sense to take a taxi for this short leg instead of making the detour via Innsbruck.