Via Ferratas of the Italian Dolomites: Vol 2 - John Smith

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that is windy and slow, as is the final part of the journey on the mountain roads of the Dolomites.

      Fast and reliable inter-city trains can be used to travel across Europe. However, as with flying, connecting travel into the mountains needs to be organised, which can eat into holiday schedules.

      There is a wide range of options, from the basic, such as camping or mountain rifugios, to the height of luxury. Amongst the most popular choices are self-catering apartments and meubles. The latter are (usually smaller) hotels that do not provide evening meals, but which are good value for money if you are content with a modest meal in a nearby pizzeria. All major towns, and even most small villages, have tourist information offices which will help you find accommodation, although you will usually have to make your booking direct with the place you want to stay.

      There is an extremely good network of rifugios throughout the Dolomites – some owned by the CAI and some privately owned. Most are well appointed and provide comfortable accommodation at reasonable prices, together with substantial meals of good quality. Sleeping arrangements usually involve dormitories, and whilst blankets are generally provided a sheet sleeping bag is required (although these can be hired at many of the larger rifugios). Washing facilities are provided, but these can be quite basic and hot water should not be expected. Information about opening times can be obtained from local tourist offices or from the CAI’s website, much of which is now translated into English (see www.cai.it). Bivouac huts are common in the more remote mountain areas, although these are little more than emergency shelters, with facilities limited to a few bunks and blankets. Use is on an honesty basis, but anyone planning an overnight stay should carry all their needs, including food and water.

      Italy has an excellent, albeit complicated, network of tourist information offices. The Italian State Tourist Board (ENIT) has offices in many capital cities, including London. The information they provide is often very attractive, but so general as to be of little practical help in planning your trip. It is better to contact the local tourist offices in the area you plan to visit. Under the umbrella of ENIT, a hierarchy of tourist offices is maintained at regional level, provincial level, and in most towns and villages in holiday areas. These offices are known either as APT (Azienda di Promozione Turistica) or EPT (Ente Provinciale Turismo). Towns or villages not included in the ENIT network often maintain their own information offices, known as Assessorato al Turismo. Just to confuse even further, you will also see ‘Ufficio Turistico’ signs, which may be the APT office anyway! An approach to any of these offices generally elicits a wealth of detailed material about matters such as accommodation, public transport and lifts in the area. Whilst most of the staff in the larger offices speak good English, this is not necessarily the case with some of the smaller offices. So if you make your enquiries by phone, prepare yourself with a few Italian phrases.

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      Percorso Sass Brusai offers a good view of the normal descent path (BASAN 2)

      The following addresses and websites might prove useful.

       ENIT London office: Italian State Tourist Board, 1 Princess Street, London W1R 9AY, Tel. 0207 3551557/73551439 or website: www.enit.it

       Italian Tourist Web Guide: www.itwg.com.

      These sites contain a huge amount of practical information, including links to local tourist offices, although not all the pages on the ENIT site are in English.

      Public transport in Italy is generally good and cheap, and many of the routes described in this book can be accessed by bus. There are a number of major operators, with well-integrated timetables, serving the area, including Atesina, Dolomitibus and SAD. Check their timetables (see website addresses in Appendix 5) even if you have a car, as some routes involve extensive mountain traverses, which will deposit you some miles from where you started! Note, however, that the services of all bus operators are reduced considerably on the middle weekend of September.

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      View north from eastern side of Passo Groste, the start of Sentiero Vidi and Sentiero Palete (BREN 10 and 12)

      The Dolomites are well served by cable cars, which are often surprisingly cheap. Whilst a good many lifts are winter-only operations, those in the more popular areas operate throughout the summer months. As with bus services, the cable-car operators run reduced operations at the beginning and end of the summer, although this varies depending on the individual operating companies and unpredictable factors like the weather. As a general rule, however, most services operate from July through August, and remain in place into the beginning of September, with more popular routes continuing into October in some cases. Local tourist offices can usually advise on timetables, and it is wise to check the services in advance to enable you to plan your climbing timetable accordingly. Bus and cable-car timetables are referred to throughout this guide, since changes from one season to another have been very limited in recent years. It is, however, wise to check locally before finalising your itinerary for the day.

      Northern Italy has an excellent mobile phone network and, with near universal ownership of mobile phones, telephoning within, or from, Italy presents no difficulties. However, note that, both for calls to and within Italy, you need to dial the full area code, including the leading zero. Italy’s international access code is 0039.

      Phone boxes in Italy generally use phone cards rather than cash. Full instructions are often found in English (although they don’t tell you that you need to break off the corner of your phone card before use, otherwise they don’t work!). Phone cards are available from newsagents, tabacs, bars or vending machines close to phone boxes.

      Useful emergency numbers are:

• Carabinieri/rescue 112
• Police 113
• Fire service 115
• Road rescue 116
• Mountain rescue/Ambulance 118

      Visitors to the Dolomites are generally well served by mapmakers, although the situation is not quite so good in the more southerly areas covered by this volume. For general orientation and travelling around the region, it is hard to beat the road maps produced by the Italian Touring Club (TCI) at a scale of 1:200,000, although the AA Road Atlas at 1:250,000 is another good choice. However, travellers are increasingly relying on electronic mapping systems, and it is pleasing to note that the coverage of northern Italy is excellent, with Google Maps and the main SatNav systems featuring accurate, street-level mapping.

      There is a growing range of the more detailed maps needed in the mountains, with several manufacturers producing maps at both 1:50,000 and 1:25,000. While the smaller scale is perhaps suitable for gaining an overview of an area, the complex terrain of the Dolomites makes the larger scale essential in the mountains.

      The best coverage of large scale maps is by Tabacco and Kompass, although neither cover some of the more southerly areas covered by this guide. Each has its adherents (we favour Tabacco), but there is little to choose between them in terms of quality. Both are easy to read and fairly accurate, although neither can match Ordnance Survey maps for detail and accuracy. Both manufacturers are now including geographic coordinates, but see individual maps for Datum settings to use with your GPS unit. There are, however, other manufacturers you might wish to consider. Lagir Alpina and the Austrian Alpine Club’s Alpenvereinskart series both cover parts of the area covered by this guidebook. Users of GPS units can buy good

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