fred_jb
Registered user
After receiving helpful advice here on my proposed trip to the Dolomites in late July/early August, I thought I would belatedly post a trip report here in case it is of any interest ....
I set off late afternoon on the 20th via Eurotunnel, for my destination of the Dolomites and took a relaxed pace with three hotel stops en-route. Fairly cheap but pleasant hotels courtesy of booking.com. Nice old hotel near Strasbourg:
Had an excellent pizza here from the wood fired stove in the garden restaurant, followed by the best Cafe Gourmand I have ever had. For those not familiar with this, it is normally on the dessert menu and includes a coffee plus a selection of 3 or 4 mini desserts. Well worth having, especially if undecided about what dessert to choose, and in this case the mini desserts were pretty substantial:
The last hotel en-route, in Switzerland, was a bit of a disappointment. Turns out the family who owned it was on holiday and it was officially closed, but they still take booking.com reservations otherwise they would not be able to use the site, so just arranged for the caretaker to meet me and let me in. To be fair it was fine, and he provided a more than decent breakfast, but it meant the restaurant was closed. The only nearby place was expensive and the food mediocre, but at least the view was good!
I took the the car transporter train through a 17 kms tunnel from Klosters on my way out of Switzerland. A bit like Eurotunnel, but with open carriages, so it gets pretty windy standing next to the bike, to the point that anything unsecured could get blown away, though nice and cooling on a hot day.
I stayed the first night in the Dolomites area in an excellent hotel which I thought was good value at 67 Euros including both dinner and breakfast, both of which were very good. The hotel is called Villa Ruggero Wine Hotel and it is in Campitello di Fassa. Here is a pic of that town at night:
I booked 5 nights at a campsite a few miles south of this hotel, at Camping Catinaccio Rosengarten as I had decided to try to economise, and possibly recapture my lost biking youth, by doing some camping for the first time in about 30 years! I bought some new low cost gear for the trip and have to say I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was and how comfortable I was despite thunderstorms and torrential rain in the evenings after being hot and sunny for my ride outs. The campsite was fine, though the eating on site seemed pretty much limited to pizza and apple strudel! I also had to ask to change pitches, as it turned out I was literally surrounded by young families with squalling bambinos, and when one started up, the others all joined in, plus their dogs started yapping too - and this was just siesta time in the afternoon, goodness knows what it would have been like at night. Fortunately although the site was nominally full they took pity on me and managed to squeeze me into a quiet corner. The self supporting tent proved its worth because I could just un-peg it and carry to the new location.
The town, Pozza di Fossa, is about a 10 minute walk from the campsite, and there is a back gate out of the site to the path running alongside the river which makes for a more scenic walk. The town is a bit limited in eating opportunities, but I found Restaurant Aida to be reasonable value and the food was certainly good, despite the rather scary looking tattooed waitress, who turned out to be very helpful and greeted me like a long lost friend the second time I went in there. Desert was a tub of icecream from the Gelaterio, eaten on the way home. The entrecote with wine and onion sauce was good value at 17 Euros, especially as it comprised two steaks!
One thing I was disappointed in was the relative lack of facilities at the campsite, for example, no pool to cool down in after a day's riding. My rather slapdash research had led me to believe there was, but the campsite website cunningly includes pictures of the facilities at the thermal spa just across the river, which deception I had failed to spot! You can go there for only (!) 48 euros for a full day or 44 euros for a 5 pm onwards session, less 10% discount for campers. It includes a buffet supper and use of all pools, sauna, turkish bath, etc, but not a massage - that was a further 40 Euros! I was tempted - after all my wife goes on loads of spa days with her mates, but a change of plan meant I didn't get chance.
Basecamp established:
Then moved to a quieter location:
The rather posh spa:
View of campsite from spa:
I chilled out exploring the town and campsite the first day, then set out the next morning when the campsite gates opened at 7 AM for a circular trip taking in the four passes making up the Sella Group, which was about 50 miles in total. I did this early because this area gets incredibly busy in summer, and I was told it was worse than usual due to people going to the mountains to try to escape the heatwave. The main road through all the little towns leading up to Canazei at the foot of the Sella pass is just a nose to tail procession for large parts of the day. I decided to do the circular route in the anti-clockwise direction so that the mountains would have the sun on them from the east side and it would have risen sufficiently to light up the west side by the time I made it round to the Sella pass. The Sella is notorious for being the one pass that all the tourists flock to, and at one point a ticketing system was introduced to limit numbers. However the online booking system didn't seem to be working and it seems to have been abandoned due to complaints from businesses.
Route and some pics from the first day's ride out:
To be continued in Part 2
I set off late afternoon on the 20th via Eurotunnel, for my destination of the Dolomites and took a relaxed pace with three hotel stops en-route. Fairly cheap but pleasant hotels courtesy of booking.com. Nice old hotel near Strasbourg:
Had an excellent pizza here from the wood fired stove in the garden restaurant, followed by the best Cafe Gourmand I have ever had. For those not familiar with this, it is normally on the dessert menu and includes a coffee plus a selection of 3 or 4 mini desserts. Well worth having, especially if undecided about what dessert to choose, and in this case the mini desserts were pretty substantial:
The last hotel en-route, in Switzerland, was a bit of a disappointment. Turns out the family who owned it was on holiday and it was officially closed, but they still take booking.com reservations otherwise they would not be able to use the site, so just arranged for the caretaker to meet me and let me in. To be fair it was fine, and he provided a more than decent breakfast, but it meant the restaurant was closed. The only nearby place was expensive and the food mediocre, but at least the view was good!
I took the the car transporter train through a 17 kms tunnel from Klosters on my way out of Switzerland. A bit like Eurotunnel, but with open carriages, so it gets pretty windy standing next to the bike, to the point that anything unsecured could get blown away, though nice and cooling on a hot day.
I stayed the first night in the Dolomites area in an excellent hotel which I thought was good value at 67 Euros including both dinner and breakfast, both of which were very good. The hotel is called Villa Ruggero Wine Hotel and it is in Campitello di Fassa. Here is a pic of that town at night:
I booked 5 nights at a campsite a few miles south of this hotel, at Camping Catinaccio Rosengarten as I had decided to try to economise, and possibly recapture my lost biking youth, by doing some camping for the first time in about 30 years! I bought some new low cost gear for the trip and have to say I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was and how comfortable I was despite thunderstorms and torrential rain in the evenings after being hot and sunny for my ride outs. The campsite was fine, though the eating on site seemed pretty much limited to pizza and apple strudel! I also had to ask to change pitches, as it turned out I was literally surrounded by young families with squalling bambinos, and when one started up, the others all joined in, plus their dogs started yapping too - and this was just siesta time in the afternoon, goodness knows what it would have been like at night. Fortunately although the site was nominally full they took pity on me and managed to squeeze me into a quiet corner. The self supporting tent proved its worth because I could just un-peg it and carry to the new location.
The town, Pozza di Fossa, is about a 10 minute walk from the campsite, and there is a back gate out of the site to the path running alongside the river which makes for a more scenic walk. The town is a bit limited in eating opportunities, but I found Restaurant Aida to be reasonable value and the food was certainly good, despite the rather scary looking tattooed waitress, who turned out to be very helpful and greeted me like a long lost friend the second time I went in there. Desert was a tub of icecream from the Gelaterio, eaten on the way home. The entrecote with wine and onion sauce was good value at 17 Euros, especially as it comprised two steaks!
One thing I was disappointed in was the relative lack of facilities at the campsite, for example, no pool to cool down in after a day's riding. My rather slapdash research had led me to believe there was, but the campsite website cunningly includes pictures of the facilities at the thermal spa just across the river, which deception I had failed to spot! You can go there for only (!) 48 euros for a full day or 44 euros for a 5 pm onwards session, less 10% discount for campers. It includes a buffet supper and use of all pools, sauna, turkish bath, etc, but not a massage - that was a further 40 Euros! I was tempted - after all my wife goes on loads of spa days with her mates, but a change of plan meant I didn't get chance.
Basecamp established:
Then moved to a quieter location:
The rather posh spa:
View of campsite from spa:
I chilled out exploring the town and campsite the first day, then set out the next morning when the campsite gates opened at 7 AM for a circular trip taking in the four passes making up the Sella Group, which was about 50 miles in total. I did this early because this area gets incredibly busy in summer, and I was told it was worse than usual due to people going to the mountains to try to escape the heatwave. The main road through all the little towns leading up to Canazei at the foot of the Sella pass is just a nose to tail procession for large parts of the day. I decided to do the circular route in the anti-clockwise direction so that the mountains would have the sun on them from the east side and it would have risen sufficiently to light up the west side by the time I made it round to the Sella pass. The Sella is notorious for being the one pass that all the tourists flock to, and at one point a ticketing system was introduced to limit numbers. However the online booking system didn't seem to be working and it seems to have been abandoned due to complaints from businesses.
Route and some pics from the first day's ride out:
To be continued in Part 2
