our italian honeymoon itinerary part 2: the dolomites
Marriage involves a lot of compromise and our honeymoon was exactly that. Ryan – hailing from the PNW – is through-and-through a mountain guy, eagerly awaiting the next hiking or backpacking adventure. I, on the other hand, grew up in Southern California where I am in constant need of sunshine and saltwater so the Amalfi Coast had always been my dream honeymoon destination.
One day at a coffee shop when honeymoon planning, we watched this video of Top 100 Places in Italy to Visit (spoiler: this guy sends a lot of ‘gainers’ everywhere ha) and Ryan fell in love with The Italian Dolomites. So that was that! We decided we’d spend half the trip in the Amalfi Coast and half in The Italian Dolomites.
If you missed it and the beach is more your thing, check out part 1 of our honeymoon: the Amalfi Coast.
If the mountains are calling you - here’s what was to our surprise, an extremely Austrian leg of our honeymoon in Italy: the Dolomites.
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Timing: Mid-Late October – this was cutting it VERY close to the end of season here before everything shuts to prepare for the winter season. Our top choice hotels were already closed which was a bummer but luckily we were still able to find a gem!
Weather: Chilly during the day (when you’re hiking and the sun is out it can get a little sweaty so bring layers) and very cold at night!
Transportation: We flew from Naples to Venice on Volotea (make sure to check inter-Italy flights before booking your hotels as they aren’t daily). The flight was super quick, easy and cheap! They are a little bit strict on baggage allowance, but not too bad! Once we landed in Venice, we rented a car and drove the 3-ish hours to the Dolomites. We wanted to stop in Verona for lunch, but the weather was calling for rain around our hotel that afternoon and we didn’t want to get caught driving in it. But if you have the time - that sounds like a fun pitstop for lunch! When we rented a car for the Amalfi Coast, the Fiat made sense, but we learned the hard way that you’ll want something with a little more oomph for these mountains.
Did we do any research before going?: Hardly. Planning a wedding ourselves really took up the bulk of our mental space and time leading up to the honeymoon so you can imagine how surprised we were to find out that the Dolomites are not very Italian at all. We learned a ton about South Tyrol from the hotel staff and our e-bike tour guide which was a fun, immersive way to learn! The dirndls the hotel staff were wearing were what tipped us off initially haha.
Where we stayed: I think the Dolomites take the cake for the most outrageous resorts I’ve ever seen all in one general vicinity. Please just look up the insanity of places like Hotel Hubertus. That pool? A floating spa? Seems fake. Anyways! Due to limited availability being off-season and because many have a minimum night requirement, we landed on Hotel Valentinerhof. If you’re looking to book a trip to the Dolomites, you’ll quickly realize they are MASSIVE and the tourist hot spots are very spread out. When finding a place to stay, try to pick an accommodation near your top priorities to visit, but either way you’ll most likely end up driving a bit if you want to hit a few spots.
We landed on Valentinerhof because it was the closest to Seceda which was Ryan’s #1 priority landmark to see. It has a gorgeous view of Alpe De Siusi – the largest high altitude meadow in Europe. This hotel was on the smaller side, but beautiful! The staff was so friendly and helpful. We spent days getting comfortable with our naked bodies in front of other people in the saunas (the “spot the American'' game was very easy here haha) and soaked in the mountain views. Although the pool looked like it was steaming warm and there were many people in it, it was still way too cold for me to enjoy outside in October weather haha. The hotel came with breakfast and multi-course dinner each night which was delicious. We were excited that we finally had some salad, fruits and veggies back in our diet after eating straight pasta for a week in Amalfi. We also got massages here which by American standards were very affordable. I loved that this place felt expensive but didn’t have the outrageous price tags that even some LA restaurants have. We really felt like we got to have a luxe honeymoon experience without breaking the bank.
Day 1: Arrive in the Dolomites
We arrived at our hotel after not too bad of a drive from Venice! The hotel surprised us with champagne for our honeymoon so we changed into our robes to feel the full honeymoon relaxation fantasy. We popped into the saunas for a bit before heading down to dinner and calling it an early night. Check out the view from our hotel room!
Day 2: Seceda
We had breakfast at the hotel before driving over to Val Gardena where we took the cable car up to Seceda! One of my favorite parts about hiking in the Dolomites is most times, you don’t have to hike that much haha – there are so many cable cars to help do most of the leg work. This place is a must see - it’s stunningly gorgeous. When buying your tickets for the gondola, make sure to check out the maps and see what specials they have going on - we bought a gondola ticket we were able to use on another mountain later in the week! We spent hours exploring the mountain, finding all the swings we could and lounging at Baita Mastle Hütte where we had beers and kaiserschmarrn (a delicious Austrian fluffy pancake topped with fruit compote). If every hike had beer and pancakes at the top like this, I’d be much more into hiking. The woman who worked at the hut was so kind and brought us little shooters for a honeymoon treat. The nice thing about the gondolas is you can spend as much time or as little time as you want since it’s pretty easy to get up and down the mountain! We spent all afternoon here and went back to the hotel when it got dark for some sauna time before dinner.
Day 3: Geisler Alm
After breakfast at the hotel, we made our way over to Funes to hike Geisler Alm via the Adolf Munkel trail. We ate at the Gschnagenhardt Hut which has a gorgeous, picturesque view of Geisler Alm and delicious food! Obviously we had beer and kaiserschmarrn again but also had the cheese plate and minestrone soup! The owner, Konrad, was a sweet old man who was playing accordion at our table for the guests! One couple even got up to dance it - it was so magical. Watch the video here! After hanging out at the hut for a while, we hiked back and drove back to the hotel to end the day with the sauna and dinner!
Day 4: Alpe De Suisi
On our 4th day we booked a group e-bike tour around Alpe De Siusi (also known as Seiser Alm) through our hotel! The guided part was free through our hotel, so we only had to pay to rent the bikes themselves. The group was only Ryan and me and one other couple on their honeymoon from Austria so it felt almost private. This was the perfect place to bike as most of the mountain is a giant plateau. We cruised around all day and stopped at a hut for lunch.
The Austrian couple with us told us over lunch they had never heard of The Sound of Music which absolutely blew our minds, but they assured us that they’re very familiar with the film “Kevin Alone at Home” hahah. The tour took a turn for the awkward as the e-bike started to bruise my “seated” area so there were tears shed unfortunately, but I made it through haha. It’s not a memorable excursion if I don’t cry or injure myself. To end the day we sat at the hut near the gondola and had coffee and ice cream before heading back down to town. Ryan and I joke that the highlights of every trip are always bike or boat related and that theory has yet to be disproven. At night we booked massages through the hotel which were lovely and had our last dinner in the Dolomites.
Day 5: Lago Di Braies + Tre Cime Di Lavaredo
We got up early to try to fit in a little bit more sightseeing on our way out of the Dolomites before heading back to Venice. We took the long way out of the mountains so we could stop by Lago Di Braies and Tre Cime Di Lavaredo. When going to Lago Di Braies, don’t let the parking lots on the way there fool you, there’s also one very close to the Lake. We weren’t sure so we chose one further away and walked which wasn’t bad, but the prices were comparable if I remember correctly so try the close one first! The lake is stunning and photographs even better. If we had more time I would have loved to rent a rowboat and enjoy the views from the lake itself or do a short hike! But we had more sights to see and wanted to make it back to Venice before it was dark!
We then drove over to Tre Cime Di Lavaredo. We had to wait a while in a line to get in and it was pretty crowded up in the parking lot. Since we didn’t have much time to spare, we decided to explore the area opposite where most people were going to find this “road to Mordor” looking area we saw on YouTube haha. I was nauseous with fear from some of the heights and refused to walk over to this section but I got some great photos of Ryan!
On our way out of the Tre Cime area we stopped at Malga Rin Bianco where we had arguably our favorite meal of the trip. They have a sit down restaurant and a quick takeaway stand – we got a Venetian salami and cheese sandwich and I still think about it to this day. It was so simple, but unreal.
And then we made our way back to the Venice airport! Once we were there, we dropped off our roller luggage at luggage storage and only took our backpacks to the heart of Venice via water taxi (we splurged since it was our last two nights!). Would highly recommend not bringing roller bags to Venice if you can avoid it!
And that was a wrap on part 2! Our quick weekend in Venice breakdown is next! If you have any questions on anything Dolomites related please shoot me a message!
xoxo, squid
