Dolo­mi­tes Natu­re Park Hike

After the real­ly nice crossing of the Alps last year, we wan­ted to do ano­ther tour with Feu­er und Eis — but this hike was quite a dis­ap­point­ment. Start­ing with the orga­niza­ti­on (unli­ke the AÜ, this tour is not orga­ni­zed by Feu­er und Eis, may­be that was the reason): — We only recei­ved the (well-equip­ped) fol­der with all the info the evening befo­re the first tour at the hotel, and the GPS data only on request. — A per­so­nal gree­ting was can­ce­led due to the coro­na­vi­rus — but we were then sup­po­sed to do ever­y­thing except for a sin­gle ‘real’ shut­tle by public trans­port. We were then sup­po­sed to do ever­y­thing by public trans­port (which was­n’t easy at all). — The cable car in Cor­ti­na did­n’t work at all — which, accor­ding to the staff, was well known. The­re were bus tickets as a sub­sti­tu­te. Posi­ti­ve: The orga­ni­zers on site were always available and hel­pful — but of cour­se we would have wis­hed for less neces­sa­ry inqui­ries. A Bel­gi­an fami­ly who stay­ed with us in the hotels was impres­sed by The tour its­elf would not have been easi­ly fea­si­ble for older peo­p­le (in retro­s­pect we were glad that my par­ents had to can­cel), but is rated the same here as the OT. The easier opti­on on day one, for exam­p­le, was not even offe­red, you would have had to go some­whe­re else; we have no idea when and whe­re we could have spe­ci­fied this. After hea­vy rain­fall, the path into the Gemärk was not so easy, even bro­ken off in places, and the river, which had risen quite a bit, could no lon­ger be crossed in shoes — three times ins­tead of once as indi­ca­ted — I don’t know how my par­ents would have mana­ged it (a litt­le hint that the path is not enti­re­ly safe after hea­vy rain would have been nice!) The path via the Ra Stua hut was com­ple­te­ly clo­sed due to reno­va­ti­on work, unfort­u­na­te­ly nobo­dy told us this eit­her.    We still haven’t found out why you should walk to Cor­ti­na d’Am­pez­zo (which is real­ly not worth see­ing) and then be dri­ven all the way back two days later by bus. The tour almost see­med a bit “bloa­ted” and could have been shor­ten­ed to four or five days in a much nicer (and more sen­si­ble) way. The­re were three real high­lights, the big loop on the first day, the time on the Pra­to Piaz­za and the Three Peaks loop (if you can igno­re the many peo­p­le). The rest, in our opi­ni­on, could be done without.

This was our third tour with a dog and I have to say it was also the most impressive…All the accom­mo­da­ti­on was top, the Hotel Rose in Nie­dern­dorf deser­ves a spe­cial men­ti­on, here the boss hims­elf takes care of all the needs of the indi­vi­du­al guests, all the tours were super­b­ly plan­ned in words and pic­tures, GPS data was also available to us.One small draw­back was the sum­mer time­ta­ble that was han­ded out on 10.9, which we noti­ced too late and the­r­e­fo­re had to walk long extra kilo­me­ters on 2 afternoons…here you should not only send mes­sa­ges to one cell pho­ne num­ber, but per­haps to seve­ral from the group, then it is not so bad if a num­ber is for­got­ten and the mes­sa­ge never arri­ves. Howe­ver, after asking on the pho­ne, we were quick­ly hel­ped and given the details for the next day…