Wandermeister

Details for Dolomites and Stubai Valley

The Stubaital is a true hiker’s paradise. The Stubaital and the Stubai Alps offer an almost limitless hiking network. An unforgettable nature experience as the Stubaital offers something for everyone, independent of training condition, stamina and experience. Walks and hikes in the village of roses or to scenic nature site, easy routes on medium altitudes and more challenging glacier or summit routes. In addition to quaint huts and tasty Stubai delicacies, impressive views mark the end of the hike. Panoramic views of the summits and the platforms at the Stubai Glacier, the Schlick 2000 and at the Elfer are probably the most rewarding experiences when hiking.
Whereas tourism has taken over in a lot of places, 'our' village in the Stubai Valley is an untouched Tyrolean village with traditional farms and homely village inns. It is about half an hour away from Innsbruck and the hiking over there is very various. Moving around by bus and cable-cars, we will spend one day at a famous glacier-area, an other day at marvellous chalk-stone mountains. We will see a protected highmoor and some other ‘little hills’… The view from the terrace of our hotel is just breathtaking: there are gorgeous mountains and meadows all around you. It has nice renovated rooms and again it will be the boss himself who will cook delicious food for us.
For our stay in the Dolomites we’ve chosen an other special village: because of its cosiness and because it is pretty small and situated directly in the mountains. We will do some hikes out of this village directly, for the others we will move by public bus – like this we will see five Ladin-speaking communities of the Badia Valley by the end of the week. To me Ladin sounds like a mixture between Swiss-German and Italian (it is only spoken in this region and partly in Graubünden, which is a ‘state’ (Kanton) in Switzerland. Here some information: The Ladin population are characterised not only by their language but also especially by their ancient and proud culture based around agriculture and their artisans. This culture has traditionally respected and conserved the natural environment, adopting among other things a specific type of architecture to create a balance and harmony between the natural landscape and civilisation.
Our non-hiking day we will go to Bolzano, the capital of Südtirol. Those who want to, can visit the Ötzi-museum and have a look at the Iceman. Plenty of shops and Cafes should it make a pleasant day. Historically interesting is an obvious separation into the old Austrian and the new Italian part of the town – I will take you around and will try to introduce this nice city to you.
One more thing about our hotel: on our last evening there our group insisted that the chef himself gets out of his kitchen and presents himself in front of the group - and we all welcomed him with and standing ovation! Anything more to say about food?!