Alpe di Siusi and Val Gardena

UNESCO World Heritage Site (The Dolomites, Inscribed 2009), Covering The Alpe Di Siusi High Pasture, The Sciliar Massif And The Sassolungo Group Above Val Gardena · Castelrotto, Trentino-Alto Adige

The largest high alpine meadow in Europe, about fifty square kilometres of rolling grass at roughly two thousand metres, with the Sciliar massif standing at one end and the Sassolungo at the other, both of them sheer pale dolomite rising straight out of the pasture. The effect is peculiar and specific: gentle walkable grassland with vertical rock walls closing every view, which is why it is photographed more than almost anywhere else in the Alps. The road up is shut to cars through the day, so you arrive by cable car from Siusi and walk, and the paths across the meadow are wide, graded and suitable for people who do not hike. Below it runs the Val Gardena, three villages where Ladin is still the first language and woodcarving has been the trade since the seventeenth century. In winter the whole thing is a ski area; in summer it is cows, huts and long views. Stay in a hut on the plateau if you can, because the meadow after the last cable car down is a completely different place.

Via Sciliar 16, Castelrotto, Trentino-Alto Adige, 39040, Italy

NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED. The structure is seasonal rather than daily: cable cars run from roughly mid-June to late September and again from December to March, with LONG MAINTENANCE CLOSURES in May and November when the huts shut too. First ascent is early morning and last descent in the late afternoon; both stop in high wind. THE PLATEAU ROAD IS CLOSED TO CARS THROUGH THE DAY in the walking season. Huts open with the lifts. Confirm the season and the last cable car down.

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