Ingo

Mel, chiming in late but want to add my 2ct. I'd like to encourage you to have a look at Toblach and Innichen, just north of Cortina. They are in the wide open, sunny Pustertal which is right between the Dolomites and the main crest of the Alps with the glaciers on the border to Austria. I personally found the contrast between both - different - types of mountains amazing, especially enjoyed it from outstanding viewpoints like Mt. Helm or Kronplatz (near Bruneck), both accessible by cable car. Also, from the main valley (Pustertal) you have convenient access to some very beautiful valleys (Fischlein valley e.g.), some with crystal clear lakes (overrun in main season, though: Pragser Wildsee e.g.)

Could be a nice alternative for either Val Gardena or Cortina, as both are quite similar in mountain scenery.

Melnq8

Fantastic Ingo, I will take a look, thank you!

Adelaidean

“Adelaidean - I stumbled across your TR from your visit to the Dolomites in 2016 - a good read.”
Oh yeah, rereading makes me want to go back, lol.


Mel, I think you’ve seen my report from last year? Based in San Candido / Innichen

Slowly does it...our trip to north Italy

barbarahood1770

Mel, as poster #21 wrote, Toblach and Inniken (or Dobbiaco and San Candido in Italian), are also in beautiful areas, really close to lake Braies, (Pragser Wildsee in German) and Val Fiscalina (Fischlein in German). The landscape is less dramatic and more open than in valleys such as Val Gardena, Val di Fassa or Val Badia. The advantage of those towns though, is that there is a train...
The most dramatic views right from the valley are probably in Val Badia. Val Gardena is less dramatic as far as views go, maybe because it is so narrow that it is hard to see the rocky tops of the mountains from the valley, but of course it is near a lot of wonderful hiking.
my favorite valley I would say is Val di Fassa.
But, this year I was planning on staying in Colfosco, right between Val Gardena and Val Badia. Will try again in the spring...
Going from Cortina to Val Gardena by bus will be rather painful. There is no direct route.
this is a map of the Sud Tirol transport network (bus and trains), again I cannot put the entire link yet, this is only my 7th post here, you have to add the other stuff in front...)
.suedtirolmobil.info/fileadmin/pdf/net/net_All_2020.pdf
you can see how it takes a big loop all around through Dobbiaco, Fortezza, and then Chiusa and Ponte Gardena.
If you went earlier, there would be a seasonal bus Cortina - Passo Falzarego where you could then catch a Sii bus to Corvara.
I have to warn you that that late in the season Cortina will be pretty dead. All seasonal buses won’t be running. They usually stop first week in September.

neckervd

"If you went earlier, there would be a seasonal bus Cortina - Passo Falzarego where you could then catch a Sii bus to Corvara.
I have to warn you that that late in the season Cortina will be pretty dead. All seasonal buses won’t be running. They usually stop first week in September"

That's right..This year, however, everything was a bit different because of covid. Covid too is the reason for the fact that actually, no timetables for 2021 are pubished. Therefore I gave you the cableway timetables of 2020, hoping that everybody would be able to translate indications of running periods like "13.06. - 04.10.2020: 08.30-17.00 Uhr" from German into English.

In normal times, the main bus and local train timetables of the area can be found at:
https://www.suedtirolmobil.info/en/j...es-to-download
https://dolomitibus.it/it/l/orario-dolomiti/index
https://www.cortinaexpress.it/en/
https://www.trentinotrasporti.it/en/...th-us/suburban

I don't know what you mean with: "We'd originally hoped to spend the remaining time in Switzerland, but the logistics are a bit daunting".
Trains resp buses between
Bolzano/Bozen - Merano/Meran - Malles/Mals - Zernez - St. Moritz and
Bolzano/Bozen - Merano/Meran - Malles/Mals - Martina - Scuol
as well as trains
Bolzano/Bozen - Ponte Gardena/Waidbruck (Ortisei) - Franzensfeste/Fortezza (Pustertal/Cortina d'Ampezzo) - Innsbruck - Feldkirch (Swiss border in the Rhine Valley)
run every hr.

Melnq8

neckervd - we were looking at Tifencastel (8:00), Solothurn (8:17), Sils (8:51) and Saas Almagell (9:08). I think we've decided to make two trips instead, spending about a month each time. 2.5 weeks in Switzerland never seems like enough anyway

Going from Cortina to Val Gardena by bus will be rather painful.

Good to know Barbara. Seems I still have plenty of research to do. Thanks for the additional suggestions.

Indrea

I think you can stay in Ortisei, reachable by bus from Bolzano. It would be a good base

neckervd

Bolzano/Bozen - Tiefencastel: 6 h 13 min, every 2 hrs, change at Meran, Mals, Zernez, Samedan
Bolzano/Bozen - Sils Maria: 5 h 34 min, every 2 hrs, change at Meran, Mals, Zernez, Bever
Bolzano/Bozen - Solothurn: 6 hrs 52 min, change at Innsbruck and Zurich
Bolzano/Bozen - Saas Almagell: 8 hrs 25 min, change at Verona, Milan, Brig and Saas Grund

Melnq8

Thank you neckervd.

Melnq8

I've done a bit of research on Toblach and Inniken (Dobbiaco and San Candido) and both look quite promising. Getting there seems pretty straightforward, but it's not yet clear to me how we'd get to trailheads - on foot, bus, shuttle?

Also, I see the two villages are only 4 km apart and are similar in size. I assume either one would work as a base, any reason to choose one over the other?

Melnq8

Adelaidean -

I've read your 2019 report, but I see your cousin was driving while you were in San Candido, correct?

Adelaidean

Mel, I just PM’d you, then saw this, sorry.

we did use the car a couple of times, but the bus system is good. Our trips to Cortina and Tre Cime were by car though.

I really liked the vibe in Cortina, lots of restaurants, hotels, and bus route in several directions. Such a stunning location.
I got the impression that there’d be more options for slightly off season travellers in Cortina.

The Val Pusteria towns on the train line are in a more open valley, and we needed to bus (or drive) into the side valleys anyway.
And they are tiny places. Our hotel in San Candido was pretty much winding down when we left.

Adelaidean

Just adding some landscape shots



Val Pusteria

Val Pusteria

Cortina street

Driving Cortina to Dobbiaco

The valley back to Dobbiaco

barbarahood1770

Dear Mel, you are going so late in the season you should really consider driving. It is really easy to drive those roads.
if you went when things are open then there would be more buses.

Melnq8

Our planning is somewhat all over the place at the moment. So many wonderful places, so little time. Appreciate the suggestions to date. I'll keep researching and will post as questions arise.

Leely2

Caveat: my trip was in high season and unlike what you are contemplating, but for a couple longer trips I arranged a taxi. It was dead easy though not inexpensive. Maybe not relevant for your trip, nonetheless as you research you could check it out if you really don't want to drive and the bus schedule doesn't seem viable.

Cherthor

I visited the Dolomites in early July 2018. I traveled all by public transportation and covered the Cortina, Selva Wolkenstein, and Ortisei areas.
Venice Marco Polo Airport connected to the Falzarego Pass via Cortina d'Ampezzo by daily bus services:
Dolomiti Bus
Cortina Express
ATVO
Se.Am bus-CORTINA - RIO GERE - MISURINA GENZIANELLA
Linee 30/31 PASSO FALZAREGO-CORTINA-MISURINA ALB. MISURINA-TRE CIME


The following was my bus schedule (not many bus during the day):
Cortina Express bus-8:00am; arr. CORVARA fermata bus autostazione-9:07am--6 euro. Then bus 471(9:35am) to Plan(10:30am), connecting bus 350(10:34am) to Selva Wolkenste.
It was a bit complicated but doable. You will have to plan to adapt the bus schedules.
You can find the time table here:
https://www.suedtirolmobil.info/en/j...es-to-download

Dolomites is absolutely beautiful!
Happy travels!

scrb11

I last visited in early September 2018. Spent 4 or 5 nights in Val Gardena.

They have some incentives for longer stays. For instance, the Val Gardena card for several days will cover many of the ski lifts and cable cars in the area. Also bus service.

https://www.valgardena.it/en/summer-.../gardena-card/

I wanted to go to as many mountain tops as possible using cable lifts. Wasn't in it purely for the hiking. I used the bus pass a couple of times but the buses, at least some of them, shut down by 5 PM, so I drove and the parking, such as the one for the cable car that goes to Alpe di Siusi, is cheap after 5 PM. Forget what it was but it's a nice garage, across the main road in the valley from Ortisei. I stayed in Santa Cristina so in the evenings, if you want to go have dinner in Ortisei, car gives you flexibility.

The other part is, the weather can turn very fast and take away a couple of the days you had planned. It rained heavily for 2 and a half days during my visit so when it cleared up again, I used the car to try to hit some places on the other side of the passes. So I would plan for some bad weather, there there isn't much to do when it's raining hard.

The other program they have is Val Gardena Active, which are a set of events like hikes, bike tours and the like. If you stay a certain number of nights at participating hotels, you get the card and a lot of these events are free. The bike tours aren't because you have to pay for the bike rental, including e-bikes in some case.

I tried a walking tour around 5 PM where we took a bus to an area above Ortisei, where you had some great views across the valley, as well as a famous church up there. But to get back, the buses were no longer running so they called the tour office guy who picked us up with his van.

Some of these events require going up lifts so I had both the Val Gardena Card and the Val Gardena Active card from the apartment where I stayed.


Other areas in the Dolomites have similar multiple day cards for access to cable cars, it's just a matter of how many you can get to. Most of them the last ride up is like 4:30 or 4:45 PM, even in midsummer I believe. So if you go up one of those and spend several hours hiking, you're probably not going to go up another big cable car, some of them going way up where there's still snow in the middle of summer.

There's also a SuperDolomiti Pass, which covers all the cable cars from Val Gardena to Cortina. I was almost tempted because it's not even twice the price of the Val Gardena Card, IIRC. However it was good that I didn't because the weather would have prevented me from going to many of those places.

neckervd

Cherthor just confirms what I said in my post 25: there are actually no timetables available

Melnq8

scrb11 - very helpful, food for thought, thanks for your insight.