Bookmarking for addresses.

(I'm in Montepulciano right now, staying at Al Poggiolo apts -- the Politian apts look as nice and probably slightly cheaper in this season)

Hope you have a great time tedgale, we enjoyed our time in Montepulciano. Don't forget to try the steaks at Acquacheta.

I am headed to this area in September 2012, your report helped me greatly. THANKS for sharing.

No problem Julie49, I get a lot of help from these forums when we are planning so I think its fair to write a trip report.
Come back and let us know how you got on in due course.

You did 2 of my favorite things in Italy: Drive the Great Dolomiti road and go to the medieval museum in Bologna!

The scenery is so beautiful in the Dolomiti most people never notice the road. It is so brilliantly engineered, though. Graded perfectly on those switchbacks. Italians still have that road-building thing in their hands.

The medieval museum in Bologna has so many rooms with such interesting stuff to look at. I really hate guns, but the ones they have are fascinating. Not to mention the tombs. Fantastic to see the anatomy theater. No pasta, though? I eat a ton when I'm there.

You got around a lot in five weeks. Have you been to Sicily yet?

Hi Biztravfod, I agree that the Great Dolomiti road is a delight - it would have been even better if I had been driving my MX5 rather than a rental car.

We did have our share of pasta throughout the trip but I usually only comment on food when we have something exceptionally good - or bad.

We have not been to Sicily but we would like to get back to Italy and see further south, and that would include Sicily.

Hard to believe that our Italy trip was 2 years ago - I'm just about to start my trip report on our 5 weeks in Germany. Just back last night.

Glad this popped up again. Good read and hope to see one from Sicily in the future.

Hi GregY2,

It has been a very long time since this thread was active but hopefully you still have some memories from your amazing trip. I am planning a very similar trip and stumbled across this thread. I will be traveling with my wife and 1 year old son from Rome to Lake Garda this June. Our current itinerary looks like this:

June 1-4: Rome (Trastevere, hopefully in the flat part!)
June 4-11: Pick up rental car and drive to Campello Alto, a hill town in Umbria where we have a free accommodation for the week
June 11-15: Florence
June 15-19 or 20: Bologna
June 19 or 20-24: Dolomites
June 24-27: Venice, drop rental car off
June 27-July 2: Sirmione, Lake Garda where we are attending a wedding (fly out from Verona)

We are just trying to figure out a couple things, mainly where in the Dolomites we should stay, and how long we should stay there. Because we are going all the way from Bologna also, we are thinking maybe we should overnight in Verona to break up the drive, or perhaps you have another suggestion. We have heard great things about Val Gardena area (Ortisei, Corvara, Selva in particular) but we are also interested in visiting the area by Dobbiaco and Lago di Braies. I thought that it might make sense to go through Verona and A22 to base ourselves in Val Gardena area and then drive across Great Dolomite Road on our way out through Cortina and down via A27 to Venice to avoid doing the same drive twice. I am wondering if that's maybe too aggressive though- our little one is a great traveler but even that might be pushing it.

Also do you think that spare night is best spent in Bologna, Verona or other town on route to Dolomites from Bologna, or in Dolomites. It would be great to hear your thoughts!!

I can't answer your specific questions, sego, but how nice to see such a well paced itinerary!

Hi seg6, I've just seen your post - pretty much by chance because I haven't looked at my old postings for quite a while - and I'll be happy to pass on some thoughts. It's the evening where I am and I won't get a chance to think about your questions until tomorrow but I will respond.

Greg

Back again.

We chose Ortesei as our base for the Dolomites because it seemed central to the Val Gardena and was big enough to offer a good choice of accommodation as well as a range of options for dining.
There are several other villages along the valley and, using the lift/bus pass, they would all work OK for seeing the area but we were happy with our choice.

I'm sorry we didn't get to Dobbiaco/Lago di Braies so I can't comment about that area but I know that we had no trouble occupying ourselves in & around the Val de Gardena over our 5 nights.

Bologna to Ortesei would be around 4 hours in the car I'd guess and, personally I would want to break the journey - even without a 1 year old in the car.

I would highly recommend Verona as a stopover on the way to the Dolomites. It is about half way so you'd get 2 very manageable transits and we loved Verona.

It depends on your own priorities of course but I'd consider taking time from Bologna to give you 2 nights in Verona.

Ortesei to Venice looks to be about 3 1/2 hours so it could be done. We didn't go beyond Cortina from Ortesei so I don't know anything about the roads, scenery etc. It would be longer than backtracking but not a lot.

You could have all but one of your Dolomite nights at Ortesei then take one night in Cortina - the drive to Venice would then be just a couple of hours.

Hope this is helpful, Greg

Well, I guess I'm glad that I took the trouble to respond to these questions.

no good deed goes unpunished, Greg!

Thanks for noticing Annhig . . . it's little enough really to respond but I did give it some thought and it is irksome that they never came back.

it's happened to me too, which is why I felt for you, Greg.

And it's probable that I've done it to others, entirely inadvertently of course, when there have been a lot of posts responding to an enquiry of mine.

the good news is that we've never been to the Dolomites so your advice will be very useful when we eventually get there!