FV Castello di Fiemme village and amenities
TR Transport
WA Walking
OW Our walks and photos
EP Some extra photos
Walk Photos
Welcome to our Castello di Fiemme page for our 2005 summer holiday in the Dolomites.
You are at: Home > Castello di Fiemme
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OH Our holiday
FV Castello di Fiemme village and amenities TR Transport WA Walking OW Our walks and photos EP Some extra photos |
Walk Photos |
If you have any questions or suggestions to improve information given, please contact us via D and J.
Our holiday was organised by the Ramblers Holidays. The holiday included the return flights from London Gatwick (a pain when you hail from up north) to Verona, coach transfer, half board accommodation and the services of our walking leader. Ramblers only provide one leader, so it is important to be comfortable with the grading of the holiday. Ramblers organise both C and C+ holidays from Castello - ours was a C+ holiday. Typically 6 to 7 hours walking each day, with an average of 1000m of ascent. The C+ tackled more protected (i.e. easy via feratta) walks and had more tops which were sometimes optional. The Dolomites walking was much more varied than we expected - with verdant valleys as well as rocky mountain tops.
Ramblers send out information about the area but do not send out detailed notes on the walks. The leader will normally brief you at the start of the holiday about the walking in general, with a detailed brief each evening for the next day's walk. There were 11 people on our holiday, including our leader. Simon was very experienced and had also led the previous two week C holiday at Castello. On the arrival day, after settling in Simon took us on a short "orientation" walk around the village.
Our holiday was a two week holiday Thursday to Thursday. Simon led a walk every day except the first Tuesday and the second Sunday.
Simon's website can be found here. As Simon is often travelling and plans change, it would be best to e-mail him from his site to confirm dates.
Castello di Fiemme lies in the Val di Fiemme in the Province of Trentino in the Trentino Alto-Adige region of Italy. The Val di Fiemme is part of the Dolomites.
Castello di Fiemme is a small village a few kilometres (and about 30 minutes walk) from Cavalese, which is one of the main towns in the valley. The village church is in a prominent position above the centre of the village. The road tunnel that goes under the church yard is known by the locals as cemetery tunnel. The village centre is compact and was just 5 minutes stroll from our hotel, with two supermarkets, a bakery, the post office, an information office and a bank. The bakery opened at 7am when you could buy bread, pizza slices and apple strudel for your packed lunch. Most days the supermarkets stayed open till 7pm making it was easy to stock up on provisions.
We stayed at the Hotel Los Andes. The hotel was very comfortable, all the rooms were en-suite and most had balconies. There was a lounge and bar area, plus a large restaurant and swimming pool. The food was good quality (but not necessarily gourmet) and there was always plenty to eat. Breakfast was buffet style with choice of cereals, bread, preserves, ham and cheese. Teas, coffee and fruit juices were all available. The evening meals were three courses, with 2 or 3 choices for each course, and you could have a starter as a main course if you wished. There was a good choice of local wines - Trentino is one of the main wine producing areas in Italy.
Ramblers are the only UK company that currently (as of 2005) do walking holidays in the Val di Fiemme. To do this on your own would require flying to Verona airport, getting the train to Trento (about 1hr) and catching a local bus from Trento to Castello di Fiemme (2hrs). Verona airport is 12 km from Verona and there is a regular shuttle bus service to the railway station. Other airports in Northern Italy could be used such as Bergamo and Venice. You could also drive to Castello di Fiemme, a car would prove very useful - local bus services reduce significantly from the start of September, even though the area continues to be popular. We made extensive use of private minibuses to reach starting points, often returning from a different location.
There is no railway line to Castello di Fiemme. There are buses which run down the valley connecting the villages. Please check the local bus timetables for the times - they are not that frequent. There is a bus station at Cavalese that serves as a hub for local bus services. On this holiday use was made of private transport for most of the walks. On our own walk to the Schwarzhorn we walked to Cavalese and then caught a local bus to the top of the pass - however a couple of days later this would not have been possible as the bus only ran till the end of August.
We used three lifts in the Fiemme valley - Alpe Cermis from Cavalese; Latemar from Predazzo; Alpe Lusia from Bellamonte near Predazzo. Summer lift passes were available to cover these lifts. In 2005 the cost was 28 euros for 7 consecutive days.
We also used two lifts in the neighbouring valley of Val di Fassa - Ciampede (Rosengarten) - lift from Vigo di Fassa; Buffaure - lift from Possa.
The Val di Fiemme, together with the neighbouring Val di Fassa, is an excellent and varied walking area. The Ramblers Holiday provided us with a good selection of walks which enabled us to fully appreciate this area. Many of the photographs of the Dolomites feature the large limestone "monoliths", the Latemar and Rosengarten (aka Catinnacio - many places have both German and Italian names) are good examples of these. However the scenery is much more varied - for example the Lagorai range (a long "ridge of mountains", somewhat quieter than the more famous areas), lovely green valleys, and a very impressive gorge. If you were using public transport then Cavalese would be a better place to be based than Castello. None of the "package" companies go to this area in summer, but Thomson and Crystal do have hotels in Canazei and Campitello which are in the northern area of the Val di Fassa.
The best maps for walking are the Tabacco maps available locally, and the Kompass maps 79 - Val di Fiemme-Latemar-Lagorai (1:50000) and 686 - Val di Fassa-Marmolada-Gruppo di Sella (1:25000). All the walks we did were covered by the two Kompass maps which are available in the UK from "The Map Shop".
The paths in this area were well marked, with the familiar splashes of red and red and white paint. There were many mountain huts, baitas and malgas for refreshments on the walks.
All the walks, apart from one walk on our day off were led by Simon.
The walks have been described in chronological order.
For full set of photos please see Flickr set.
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W1 Bletterbach Gorge and Weisshorn
W2 Latemar W3 Rifugio Mulaz W4 Castel di Bombasel W5 Schwarzhorn W6 Gronton and Cima Boche |
W7 Val Moena and Cima delle Stellune
W8 Rosengarten - Cigolade Circuit W9 Buffaure to San Nicolo W10 Rosengarten - Passos Scallete and Antermoia W11 Passo Manghen Circuit Bergamo W12 Costabella and the Bepi-Zac Via Ferrata |
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| Our hotel. Flickr | Red bad, yellow good. Some people came here especially to collect fungi - you would come across them in the forest guarding their patch. As well as cooking fresh, collectors would dry and pickle. |
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| The river that ran through our valley. Flickr2 | One of the many impressive waterfalls. |
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| Tree felling competition. Flickr | Followed by bark stripping. |
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| Forest grotto. | Our village centre. |
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| Our final shot - a merged photo from the Rosengarten. Flickr |
This page was last updated on 3rd February 2010.