Background
The Dolomites comprise a mountain range in the northern Italian Alps with 18 peaks rising above 3,000 metres over 141,903 hectares. UNESCO calls them some of the most beautiful mountain landscapes anywhere, with vertical walls, sheer cliffs and a high density of narrow, deep and long valleys: nine areas of steeples, pinnacles and rock walls, with glacial landforms, karst systems, frequent landslides, floods and avalanches, and one of the best records of Mesozoic carbonate platforms with their fossils.
Much of the range lies in South Tyrol, where Wikivoyage notes that the majority speak German as their mother tongue, that signs and menus are bilingual and trilingual in the Ladin valleys, and that people have lived here since the Stone Age, Ötzi among them. The only airport is at Bolzano; trains and buses connect almost every valley.
- MesozoicCarbonate platforms form in a tropical sea
- Stone AgeThe valleys are first settled
- 2009Inscribed as World Heritage
Find Your Way Around
The main parts of the site, in the order most visitors see them
- 1Tre Cime di LavaredoThe three towers, circled by the classic day hike.
- 2Alpe di SiusiEurope's largest high alpine meadow, under the Sassolungo.
- 3Seceda and Val GardenaThe ridge above the Ladin valley of Gröden.
- 4Lago di BraiesThe lake under the Croda del Becco.
- 5MarmoladaThe highest peak and its glacier.
- 6Cortina d'AmpezzoThe resort town of the eastern Dolomites.
Know Before You Go
From Wikivoyage and the GoGo guides
A Day on the Alpe di Siusi
Not yet in a GoGo guide
- 09:00Alpe di Siusi Meadows5 hrsCable car up and a walk under the Sassolungo.
Best Time to Visit
Best months: Jun–Aug. Freezing days in Dec–Feb.
Typical highs
Climate: NASA POWER
Pair It With
Other World Heritage sites nearby, by distance
