Visiting the Dolomites in Italy was a dream come true. Truth be told, it wasn’t the trip I had always planned, but it turned out to be so much more than I expected. While we loved visiting Rome, Tuscany, and Amalfi with Landon a few years ago, this trip had been planned as a 10-year anniversary trip for Rob and I in 2020 to Norway. Well, we all know that trip clearly didn’t happen! When we started re-planning two years later, we had another kid in tow and figured that 2+ weeks away wasn’t realistic at this time and pivoted our plan to somewhere we could cover in a week. We knew we wanted it to be somewhere that would be hard to travel with little kids, so a hiking adventure was the logical choice! The Dolomites had been on my bucket list for some time (if I’m being honest, what isn’t!) and seemed like the perfect fit!

We opted to land in Munich (yay for direct flights!) and drive about 3.5 hours south to Ortisei where we stayed at the fabulous Adler Dolomiti. I cannot recommend this fantastic hotel enough! Aside from the hiking which I’ll outline below, we also spent much of our time enjoying the spa and variety of pools here. Ortisei was the perfect base for the first part of our trip; from here we were able to visit many highlights without having to drive more than an hour! Here are a few:

ALPE DI SIUSI
This stunning location was the first we visited and probably my favorite of the whole trip — I liked it so much that we went back a second time! I wouldn’t call this a hike, so much as a long walk (about an hour one way) from the car park with a brief uphill.

 

SASSOLUNGO
We planned to do a long (5-6 hour) hike here, but jetlag got the best of us! We still took the tiniest, coffin-like cable car up to the top for some epic views!

 

VAL DI FUNES
In the Val di Funes, we visited both Santa Maddelena & St. John; two beautiful churches set against the iconic Dolomite mountains.

 

ADOLF MUNKEL
Following sunrise in Val di Funes, we headed to the Adolf Munkel where we hiked. Since we had such an early start, the trail was all ours as we peacefully passed by heards of cows, their bells wildly clanging.

 

SECEDA RIDGE
Perhaps the view I was most excited for on this trip and it certainly didn’t disappoint! We were sure to stop at Baita Troier Hütte to refuel on some of their famous apple pie!

 

Following our time in Ortisei, we drove through the Val Gardena and more to get to Cortina d’Ampezzo, which — fun fact — is where they will be hosting the next winter Olympics! We stayed at Dolomiti Lodge Alverà which was a bit on the outskirts of town. While the hotel had fantastic views and a lovely staff, I could definitely see the benefit to being within walking distance to more restaurants. That being said, it was a great stay and another perfect base for more adventures on our trip! From here, we visited:

LAGO DI BRAIES
This is one of the most popular spots in the Dolomites so we were sure to get here to catch the sun rise! We enjoyed a short walk around the lake followed by renting a boat — paddling was harder than it looked ;)

 

TRE CIME DI LAVAREDO
One of the most popular hikes in the area, this circuit took us all the way around this iconic viewpoint. This was rated as an ‘easy’ hike and we saw MANY kids doing it, but we found it to be moderate. A couple we were chatting with perfectly described it as mentally challenging!

 

CIMA CADIN
This Insta-famous spot lived up to all the hype. We did this short hike following Tre Cime and the worst part of it was having to walk so close to the edge the entire time! But boy, oh boy, that view!!!

 

LAKE SORAPIS
We almost skipped this hike due to potential rain, but decided to go for it and I am SO glad we did! Definitely a more challenging hike (almost straight up hill), it’s one of those that the pay off doesn’t come until the very end but it is oh-so worth it!

 

OLPERERHÜTTE
As we headed back to Munich, we knew we wanted to do a hike along the way and this one fit the bill being not too far out of the way! You start at the bottom of the lake and hike all the way up get this overhead view that is simply jaw dropping! I wish it had been a clearer day, but the scenery was like nothing else we’d experienced.

 

MUNICH
We finally made our way back to Munich! This is a city that we had visited on our first ever trip to Europe nearly a decade prior, so it was fun walking around again to take in the sights! Our dear friends who live abroad even journeyed to spend the night with us so we could visit all the most touristy beer gardens and watch robots make drinks! It was such a wonderful trip and I’d be remiss if I didn’t give a shout out to my AMAZING parents for watching our two sweet, but wild!, boys while we were gone!