We are off to hike the Dolomites, the second of three Alpine hikes that we'll do over the years (the others being the Tour du Mont Blanc and the Haute Route).
The Dolomites are known for their colourful rocky beauty. They are also crisscrossed with trails and sprinkled with mountain huts. Our plan was a taxi from Belluno to our trailhead in the north, then hike south for about ten days, stopping along the way at eight Alpine huts. At about the half-way point we'd take a day off, in the pretty Alpine town of Cortina d'Ampezzo.
The map shows some of the huts and trails in the Dolomites. While the map doesn't show the exact route we followed—it shows far more—it does feature all the places we stopped. Unlike the Haute Route, I didn't carry a GPS-equipped camera, so map locations are going to be inferred from photos and memory.
Our first night's lodging was at Rifugio Fodara Vedla (a.k.a. Fodara), which is top center on the map (3). After Fodara we headed to Fanes (6), Scotoni (8), Cinque Torri (11), the town of Cortina d'Ampezzo (two nights with a rest day in between), Staulanza (19), Tissi (23), and then we ended the hike at Sebastiano (27). The hike took us nine days though to revisit it via this blog will take considerably longer as I'll post not much more than a picture per day.
Update: Rick Steves recommends a different base than Cortina, or Belluno. He likes Castelrotto, Italy. See his article in the Times Colonist.
Another update: Some (annoying) people run the trails in the Dolomites. For more see the NYTimes article.