2025 - Dolomites, Italy Trip

After our Viking River Cruise,  we flew to Venice, Italy to visit Dolomites by ourselves from September 14 to September 20, 2025.  It was a self planned tour to visit one of our bucket list destinations “Dolomites”.

Sep 14, 2025 - Flew to Venice and drove to Cortina d'Ampezzo in the Dolomites

Sep 15, 2025 - Visited Secede and San Giovanni Church in Val di Funes

Sep 16, 2025 - Visited Tre Cime di Lavaredo

Sep 17, 2025 - Visited Lago di Braies

Sept 18, 2025 - Visited Cima Tofana

Sept 19, 2025 - Visited Marmolada

Sept 20, 2025 - Drove back to Venice and flew back home

Sep 14, 2025 - Flew to Venice and drove to Cortina in the Dolomites

At Venice airport, we had to take a shuttle and then carry our luggages via stairs (no escalator). It took a little longer than we expected to find our rental car (Sicily by Car) counter.  We rented a Fiat 500 with expectations to try on the famous sports car, however, they gave us a Cupra Formentor hybrid.  It is a little bigger and has more space than a Fiat 500.  

We drove to Cortina d'Ampezzo with no issues to find the hotel. However, we had a bit trouble to park the car at hotel’s parking space. They have curly entryway and parking spots are all in an inclined position.

Ambra Cortina gave us room upgrades at the luxury floor with more spaces. The room has interesting bathroom setup.

Since we forgot to bring our prescribed high-altitude medicine, the fist thing we looked for in Cortina was the high-altitude medicine.  Luckily we found non-prescription ones in a nearby pharmacy, so we got it immediately.  

While we were walking around Cortina and enjoying this beautiful town, we noticed the impressive sunset lighting on the backdrop mountain, we took some photos to capture this wonderful scenery.

Per Ambra Cortina staff’s recommendation we have Italian pizza and salad in a nearby pizzeria.  The food was good, however, the services were pretty bad.

Sep 15, 2025 - Visited Seceda and San Giovanni Church in Val di Funes

In the morning, we went downstair for breakfast which provided by the hotel.  Once we got there, we noticed that they have the most wonderful breakfast we had ever experienced in all hotels we had stayed.  They even used china and golden utensils for our breakfast.  Their decorations were very impressive too.  It definitely has some of Italian artists taste in it.  We enjoyed the whole experience very much.

Our itinerary for today was visiting Seceda first then to Val di Funes to visit San Giovanni Church. The drive to Seceda is a little more than 2 hours.  The road to Seceda is very curly and beautiful.  It was the first time we have ever driven on such a winding road.  On the way, we had to stop a couple of times for photos.

When we got to Seceda’s parking lot, we were told that lot was full.  The attendee told us in Italian about other alternate spot for parking.  Of course, we did not understand what he was saying.  Therefore, we decided to detour to visit San Giovanni Church first.  It was about 45 minutes drive from Seceda.  When we got there, there was not too crowded and we found a close-by parking spot.  

The San Giovanni Church is the most Instagram spot in Dolomites.  Once we looked at it, we believed it.  We paid for additional entrance fee to get closer to the church for photo opportunities.  We stayed there for almost one hour and took a lot of photos in all different angels.

We liked our first attraction in Dolomites already.

When we drove back to Seceda, it was about 2pm and we got a parking spot this time.  We paid 52 euros per person's tickets and got on the gondola to Seceda.  Seceda is located in the Puez Odle Nature Park in Val Gardena. It is part of the Dolomites UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Once we got out of the gondola, we were immediately treated with views of the Puez Odle Nature Park. We took many photos there which we considered as the most beautiful mountain sceneries we had ever seen.

Then, we turn left and walking along the ridge line toward Seceda viewpoint area.  About 10 minutes, we were amazed with the breathtaking scenery in every angles.  Of course, there were many Kodak moments.  Then we were walking into a checkpoint where a worker charged additional 5 euros per person to pass thru to the Seceda Photo Point.  We did and got even closer to the Seceda Viewpoint.  Unfortunately, there was a piece of cloud hanging around for quite a long time.  However, we still enjoyed the scenery very much.

Then, we walked downward toward Baits Hutte Sofie. At Baits Hutte Sofie, we ordered cappuccinos and shared a raspberry cake.  It was very relaxing and it surprised us that we could get such delicious raspberry cake in a remote hut surrounded by mountains. 

Finally, we were ready to take the gondola down. 

Sep 16, 2025 - Visited Tre Cime di Lavaredo

Today, we were visiting the famous Tre Cima di Lavaredo. We had to pre-purchase parking ticket for a specific day.  Unfortunately it rained in the morning.  Due to the pre-purchased parking ticket requirement, we had to go regardless of the weather.  So we drove about 1 hour to reach there and got our rain gear on and ready to visit this famous UNSECO site.  

Luckily for us, the sky was cleared right after we started the hike from the back of Rifugio Auronzo.  The hiking trail started from Auronzo’s large panoramic terrace.  From there you have a wide view of the surrounding mountains, in particular of the Cadini di Misurina and the Cristallo.

There were a lot of hikers on the trail.  On the left side of the trail, we already witnessed huge rocks and on the right we saw breathtaking view of surrounding mountains.  While we hiked, we could hear the cow bells ringing along the way.  We also spotted several cows eating grass from the slope of the mountain.

On the way, we were wondering which 3 rocks are Tre Cime di Lavaredo.  We asked several hikers and it seemed like nobody knows and even care, everybody just enjoyed the view and took photos.  When we got close to the 2nd hut, Refugio Lavaredo, finally we ran into a hiker who just got back from the famous view point area of the 3 peaks and she told us that we were looking at the back side of the peaks and we need to walk to the other side (north side) to have full view of the UNSECO Tre Cime di Lavaredo.

Therefore, we did about another half an hour hike and finally got to the spot to view the true 3 peaks.  Of course many Kodak moments along the way.

After that, we kept hiking toward the 3rd hut, Refugio Locatelli to have a better and direct front view of the 3 peaks. 

At the foothill of the Refugio Locatelli, we talked to other hikers about where to go to complete the whole loop as we intended initially.  However, they told us that to continue would be much more difficult to hike due to the “down and then up” trail.  Therefore, we decided to give up the idea of completing the whole loop and walked back the same trail to Refugio Auronzo. 

When we got to Refugio Auronzo, the clouds started to gather and it looked like we are going to have rain again.  We got into the car and happy with our decision of coming back the easy route.

Sep 17, 2025 - Visited Lago di Braies

After another wonderful breakfast, we started our journey to visit the famous Lago di Braies.  It was about an hour drive from the hotel.  We were lucky being able to find a parking spot at P3 parking lot as recommended by many previous visitors.  A couple of minutes after we enter the parking lot, then P3 parking lot was full.  We were definitely very lucky.

A short walk around Hotel Fragser Wilds (right next to the Lago di Braies), we were pleasantly surprised with the wonderful scenery of Lake Braies.  There were row boats for rent, however the earliest time you can rent the boat is at Noon.  All boats were just lined up in the middle of the lake.  With the clear and non-distribed lake water, it gave us the most wonderful scene of the lake along with reflections of sounding mountains.  There was a newlyweds who were taking photos on the boat.  The scenery was just like in heaven.

We took a lot of photos and then walked along the right side of the lake to see more of the lake scenery.  The lake water was so blue along with beautiful reflections, we had to stop periodically to take more photos.

We took our time enjoying the scenery and finally got to top of the lake.  We found a nice spot to rest and to have our picnic lunch.

After lunch, we continued to walk the whole loop of the lake.  To our surprise, the other side of the lake has many up and down steps on the trail.  Our recommendation to other visitors is hiking from the right side of the lake for better scenery and reflections to the top of the lake, then just walk back via the same route for more photo opportunities.

On our way back, we did stopped by Lago di Dobbiaco for more photos.

When we got back to Cortina, we tried again to get gasoline for the car.  In previous days, we were unsuccessful on getting gasoline using our credit card.  This time, there was an attendant at the station, we just pumped the gas and paid him with our credit card.  At the same time we found out their working hours are from 8am to 6pm.  As long as we get the gasoline during their working hours, we shall be OK.  It was a solution to one of our main concerns during early portion of this trip. Then, we did more shopping and wandering around the town.  And we finally realized some of the decorations in the town center are for 2026 Winter Olympic which will be held in Cortina.