Where To Stay In The Italian Dolomites | Travel Guide

Where To Stay In The Italian Dolomites | Travel Guide

[Music] So, this right here is a Google map screenshot of everywhere that I wanted to visit while I was in the Dolommites. This is after months of research. Okay, you should notice two things. One, the westernmost pin on this map to the easternmost pin is like 2 and 1/2 hours. So, that’s like saying, “Hey, while I’m in Manhattan, I want to visit Philadelphia.” You can do it, but like you got to plan accordingly. The other thing you should notice is the Dolommites can easily be divided into two distinct halves based on popular tourist attractions. In the east, this is where you’re going to find the world famous Trachimi National Park. You’re going to find Rafuio Nouvalo. You’re going to find the World War I tunnels that you can hike through. You’re going to find this Insta famous viewpoint. You’re going to find the site of the upcoming Winter Olympics and so much more. If you want to know more about the hikes in those places, I do have a video on the the best hikes in the Dolommites. But right now, let’s talk about where to stay. In this half of the Dolommites, the biggest town is going to be Cortina. This is probably where you’re going to want to find an Airbnb or a hotel. I didn’t, and I’m glad I didn’t. I’ll tell you why in a second. First off though, if you do book an Airbnb in Cortina, you’re about 35 minutes from everything you’re going to want to do in this half of the Dolomite. So like you’re going to save yourself some time and some gas. Um, by the way, if you’re coming from North America, gas is so expensive in Europe, heads up, is like €2 per liter, which I don’t know, you can do the math on what that is per gallon. It’s a lot. Anyway, Cortina is the site of the upcoming uh Winter Olympics. So you can if you’re going to the winter, you can ski the same slopes as the Olympians will be skiing. So that’s kind of cool. Also, Cortina is going to have like a main shopping district that is kind of touristy and the prices are kind of high, but it’s still it’s still nice to go walk around and look at stuff. Here’s two important pieces of advice to keep in mind when booking your Airbnb, and then I’ll show you where I stayed. Okay, if you’re looking for a place with air conditioning, you will notice like no one in Italy has air conditioning. Like if you go on Airbnb and sort by air conditioning, all the dots disappear. All the pins on the map. I don’t know what it is with Europe and especially Italians, they don’t like the air conditioning. Okay, now I know it’s northern Italy, but in the heat of the summer, it still gets pretty hot and then a lot of the times it can be stuffy in your room because the air kind of gets trapped there. Um, I asked every Airbnb host for a fan and every single one of them responded with, “What’s fan?” So, I sent them a picture and they said, “No, we don’t have that. We’re not providing it.” So, I I mean, you you’re not getting a cool breeze, which means you’re probably going to want to open the window. And this is point number two to keep in mind, okay? Um, the streets in Europe are very narrow, which means when a motor car goes down the street, the sound’s going to reverberate off the buildings and it’s going to sound like you were inside the engine. So, it will be completely silent in the middle of the night and then a car comes by and bam, loud, and you’re awake. If that’s something that you think would bother you, here’s what you need to do. Get an Airbnb a couple streets behind the main street. Okay? I know it’s nice to be on a main route, but what you do is you scroll into the map, find the main street, and then go, “Okay, so I want to be three or four streets back here. This is going to be a quieter spot for you. One, traffic’s not going to go down that street very often. And then two, um, there’s other buildings blocking the noise, so you can leave your window wide open in the middle of the night. Let the breeze come in, you cool off, you’re not getting woken up.” So, I not I’m not that smart. I accidentally did this at my first Airbnb. Okay, so Valley Decador, this is where I stayed. So, this is Cortina. This is where I was. This is the opposite of touristy, and I loved it for this reason. I paid the price in terms of gas and travel time to get to my destinations. But, I mean, I felt like I was the only tourist in this town. I’m driving around these tiny little streets with these old buildings that I swear I think they were built like the 1300s. a lot of these homes that people are living in. In fact, across from my Airbnb, there was an abandoned one and it was kind of like crumbling a little bit. And you could see it was built out of sticks and and plaster, which is wild to me. So, it’s crazy to think that some of these buildings were built before Christopher Columbus was born. But anyway, it was nice because this is the main street and this is where I was. So, again, I’m up the hill and back. There’s there’s buildings blocking the noise. It was quiet. It was peaceful. I could open the window. The only people going by on that street were like these nuns that were like going to a church down the road. They would just walk by. That’s it. It was a wonderful place to stay with lots of local restaurants with Italians that don’t speak any English. And I had to kind of figure that out. That was part of the adventure. So, if you want a less touristy, more authentic experience, I would just go off the main road and look at all the little towns around there and find an Airbnb in one of those. By the way, if you do stay in Valador, there is this pizza place right here that makes really uh authentic Italian pizza. It’s owned by this uh there’s a guy, I swear he looks like he’s 100 uh who owns the restaurant and then his son is in like his 50s. Uh he’s the guy taking your order. He speaks English. Just ask him for his favorite pizza. That’s what I ordered. It was so good. What a fantastic place to stop and get some pizza. We’ll look at the western half of the Dolommites in a second. First, one more tip. Okay, if you do any research at all, you will find that there is refugeios all throughout the the Alps. These are little huts that you can stay. It’s it’s essentially a hostel that you can stay at and they’re like in the mountains. Some of them are like dangling on the edge of the cliff. They’re beautiful. This is an option for you to stay at and it’s one you should seriously consider. Now, this is different than an Airbnb. Obviously, it’s more like a hostel, like I said, like you’re going to share a room with other people probably. Uh water costs money, showers cost money because there’s limited water. Um some of them do provide some food if you pay the half the halfboard. Um and the food’s actually pretty good at some of these things. It I honestly I think it’s a great option. Also, you cut down on travel time and gas because you start your next day already in the Alps. Okay, so let’s look at this one. This is one of my favorites that I hiked by. I didn’t stay here uh on Google Maps. It’s uh it’s German name Dinen Huta I think is how you’d say it. It’s located right here behind Trachimi. Okay. So like you can’t get a better spot than this or a better view. You’re in Trachimi National Park. Uh depending if you want to stay in a dorm or in a private room or if you want to have a shower, it it’s going to cost you anywhere from €25 to €100 per night. Uh and then there’s this one here. This is Rafuio Nouvalo. So this is dangling on the edge of a cliff. Uh, I hiked up to this and it was a beautiful, beautiful refugeio with great views. Uh, I sat out on the patio, had some pasta and some wine, walked around, looked at the views. You can actually stay here overnight, which is fantastic. If you actually just go to Google Maps and type in refugeio, there’ll be dots popping up everywhere. There’s tons that you can stay in. You just literally have your pick. You A lot of people do hutto hut hiking where they’ll hike to one hut, stay overnight, eat, hike to the next. That’s a great option to do and it’s something I might do next time. All right. Now, let’s talk about the western half of the Dolommites. Okay. So, it’s in this area that you’re going to see like the world famous Sichada. Um, an easy beginner friendly via Val Dunes, which I’m I’m surely saying wrong. It’s an Instagram famous village with a with beautiful meadows at the foot of the Dolommites. There’s like a church there and everything. Uh there’s also the Rosen Garden Group, which is like a national park that honestly does not get the attention it deserves in YouTube videos. People don’t mention this that much, but there is a million unbelievable hikes and refugeios in this place. Um and honestly, they just don’t get that much Instagram attention, but you should definitely check it out. Sadly, I ran out of time. And this is what I said about planning properly, right? I had a week. I spent it all in the east. I did not go to the west. So, I’m I’m I’m not going to talk too much about this cuz I wasn’t there. I didn’t experience it, but you need to check out the West as well. Based on my map of all the things I wanted to do, if I could do this again, I would pick a small town near this junction right here. So, S 243 and S242, it’s it’s right there where you’re in the best possible position to get to all of the places quickly. one of the refugeios in this area that I was really excited to stay that it didn’t work out. It’s uh refugeio reelbert. Okay, it’s this one right here. It’s right at the base of these towers and there’s plenty of vaporas all around you and great hikes and it just looks beautiful especially at night. Like you’re going to stay there and it’s there’s no light pollution. You’re going to walk out after dark but before bedtime hanging out with a bunch of other hikers. You’re gonna be looking at the stars. It’s going to be such a great time to stay in a place like this. And then the next morning, you’re at the mountain already. So, you can just start your hike, start your vapora. This is a fantastic spot to stay in. Again, because I didn’t actually like stay in this part of the Dolommites, I’m not going to talk too much about it. I don’t know as much about it, but I will link in the description a couple blogs that do have experience being in the Dolommites that are going to help you plan your vacation. Thanks for watching. I do have another video, the best hikes in the Dolommites. You can watch that too.

Where To Stay In The Italian Dolomites | Dolomites Travel Guide

This video is about where to stay in the Italian Dolomites. This video will serve as a loose guide to planning your dolomite vacation!

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