FV Foppolo village and amenities
TR Transport
WA Walking
OW Our walks
Walk Photos
Welcome to our Foppolo walking page for our 1996 Summer Holiday organised by Ramblers Holidays.
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OH Our holiday
FV Foppolo village and amenities TR Transport WA Walking OW Our walks |
Walk Photos |
If you have any questions or suggestions to improve information given, please e-mail D and J.
The photos have been scanned and the film scanner was misbehaving, so we apologise for the inconsistent shading and quality of the photos.
Foppolo was our summer holiday destination in 1996.
This holiday was organised by the UK based specialist holiday company Ramblers Holidays. Ramblers Holidays are very experienced in organising walking holidays in Europe and other parts of the world. The holiday cost included the flights from the UK to Verona and return from Milan Linate), coach transfer to the hotel, half board accomodation and the services of a walk leader. Ramblers only provide one leader, therefore it is wise to check the brochure grading of the holiday.
Ramblers send out information which will gives some information about the area, but do not send out detailed notes about the walks. The leader will normally brief you at the start of the holiday about the walking in general, with a detailed brief on each walk the evening before. Our leader Chris was very experienced and had been based at Foppolo for the season.
This holiday was only offered as a two week holiday. Chris led a walk every day except the middle Saturday and the Wednesday of the second week. There was also no walk (by mutual consent) on the last Friday as it was raining heavily. On the second Wednesday Chris organised a coach to take us to Bergamo for the day.
Our group consisted of 17 people including a couple from the USA. We were very surprised to see one couple that were on the same Ramblers holiday to Andorra in 1988.
Foppolo lies in the Vallee Brembana in the Province of Bergamo in the Lombardy region of Italy. Foppolo is in a very pleasant setting in the Orobie Alps. It is at the head of the valley and lies at an altitude of over 1500m.
Foppolo is more famous as a ski resort. The village is spread out alongside the road, which climbs up to the lift station. The village centre is in the lower part of the village. Fopppolo is only a small village, but there are food shops, post office, information office and bank. Close to the hotel was a small supermarket where you could buy food for your lunch. There was also a specialist food shop in the lift station complex where you could buy pizza slices. There were a few bars and cafes. The village was a bit of a 'ghost town' when we were there in September, as the Italians mostly holiday in August.
We stayed at the Hotel Pineta which was in the upper part of the village, not too far from the lift station. This was a small family run hotel with small but clean bedrooms (all ensuite). The hotel had a lounge which was next to the very pleasant dining area. The really good thing about the hotel was the food. The evening meals were excellent, three courses with 2 or 3 choices at each course. They would also allow people have a starter as a main course, if the choices for the main course were not suitable. The hotel was licenced so you could have a drink of wine or beer with the meal. After the meal you could have a coffee or spoil yourself with a gloriously thick hot chocolate. The hotel had even prepared a meal for us on the first night even though we did not arrive until quarter to eleven in the evening. Breakfasts were continental style with cereal, fruit juice, rolls with jam and butter, coffee and tea.
As mentioned above our holiday was with Ramblers. Unfortunately after only 3 or 4 years Ramblers removed it from their brochure. As far as we know no UK walking companies do holidays in this area. To do this on your own would require flying to Bergamo airport and catching a local bus from Bergamo to Foppolo (2-2.5 hours). The airport is only 5km from Bergamo and there is a regular airport bus linking the airport with the town. In 2003 there are scheduled flights from Luton and Stansted (Ryanair) and Cardiff and East Midlands (Bmibaby). You could also drive to Foppolo, although useful it is not essential that you have your own transport.
There is no railway line to Foppolo, access is via road only. There are buses which run down the valley connecting the villages together. Please check the local bus timetables for the times as they are not that frequent. It is about a half hour journey to Branzi and Carona. On this holiday use was made of private transport for some of the walks.
There are a couple of chair lifts from the village, but they were not running in September, and none of the walks organised by Ramblers made use of them.
Foppolo is a very good centre for walking. Most of the walks that we did were either from Foppolo itself, or one of the surrounding villages a short bus ride away. The great advantage of Foppolo is that it is at an altitude of 1500m, and the highest mountain in the vicinity, Corno Stella, is at 2600m. This means that most of the mountains in the area are well within the scope of a day walk, and do not rely on chair lifts or cable cars for the starting point. The Orobie Alps are an excellent walking area that is not well known outside Italy, but would be enjoyed by anyone who likes walking in the Lakes and Snowdonia.
The best map for walking in the Foppolo area is the Kompass 104 "Foppolo and Valle Seriana" at a scale of 1:50000. All the walks we did were covered by this map.
Most of the paths in the area are marked using paint markings, which are not as distinct as Austria or Switzerland. Some of the walks used paths not shown on the above map. And some of the paths on the map did not exist on the ground. Unlike Austria and Switzerland there are only a few refuges or huts in the area, and these may not be open after August, so it is best to take food with you for your walk.
The walks described below are those that we did on the Ramblers walking holiday. All apart from one walk on a day off were led walks.
The walks have been described in chronological order.
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W1 Pico Vescove
W2 Cima di Lemma W3 Corno Stella W4 Dordona, Valbona and Valcervia Passes W5 Monte Arete and Monte Vallegina W6 Corona Lakes |
W7 Foppolo to Corona and Branzi
W8 Cima Cadelle W9 Lago del Diavolo W10 Cima Valloci W11 Monte Cavallo |
| Pico Vescove was done a circular from the hotel. Our leaders fitness, and our late arrival the previous night, coupled with heat made it a challenging walk to start the holiday. The way led up the south ridge taking in the views of some of the peaks that we would climb later in the holiday, such as Monte Vallegina. We had good views of the Carisole Valley and Corno Stella. From the summit we descended north to pick up a path leading us back down to Foppolo. This was a relatively short walk, but was a good introduction to the area. | |
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| Monte Vallegina. | Corno Stella and Carisole valley. |
| Today we took a private minibus to San Simeone - a small village a few miles west of Foppolo.
From San Simeone (1670m) we walked up to the Sessi skilift then paths and a well defined
track towards Passo di Lemma.
From the pass we continued up to the summit of Cima Lemma. Our descent took us to the Paso di Tortano and a small bothy where we had our picnic lunch. From here we took the path by the Porcile lakes to the Passo di Porcile, and then the main path down to Foppolo. The weather was overcast with occasional rain. |
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| Approach to Passo di Lemma. | View down Valleve valley. |
| It was a clear day so Chris decided that we should do Corno Stella, the highest summit in the mountains around Foppolo. We walked east from the hotel up towards the skilift station of Montebello. Walking past Montebello we continued up the path to Lago Moro. From the lake the main path stays just below the ridge, but we kept to the ridge for a bit of scrambling to reach the summit of Corno Stella with its metal cross. There were good views from the summit especially to the North over Cima Tonale to the snow capped peaks of the Bernina alps in the distance. From the summit we returned to Lago Moro taking in the views of Monte Toro. We returned to Foppolo via the Valcervia and Dordona passes making a good 8 hour walk. | |
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| Approach path to Corno Stella. | Lago Moro and Monte Toro. |
| Another walk from the hotel, this time we took tracks across pastures to follow a main track to the top os the Dordona pass. From the pass (2061m) we descended to Di Valbona (1904m), before climbing up to the Passo di Valbona (2324m). From this pass we descended down towards the Cervia valley before climbing to our last pass of the day - Passo di Valcervia (2319m). A very pleasnt walk but too cloudy on the day for good photos. | |
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| Main track to Dordona pass - affectionally referred to as pylon pass. | Top of Dordona pass. |
| This was an excellent walk with some very good views. Again this was from the hotel. We walked to the small hamlet of Piano. From Piano we took path 15, shown as a black dotted line on the Kompass map, which went around the slopes of Monte Arete. We left the path and climbed up the west ridge to the summit. We then followed the ridge to the summit of Monte Valegina. We had some good views especially across to Cima Cadelle - a peak we would climb later in the holiday. We descended steeply down the north west ridge to the Passo di Tartona, with good views of the Porcile lakes. From the pass we followed path 8 via Baita Nuova back to Foppolo. | |
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| Piano. | View down NW ridge. |
| Today we visited the area to the south east of the village of Corona. This area contains a number of lakes. A minibus took us from our hotel to the small village of Corona. From Corona (1100m) we walked up path 211 to the junction with path 213. We made a detour east along this path for about 10 minutes to see the damage caused by a rockfall. Returning to the junction we continued on path 213 south past Lago Becco. Continuing on this path past Lago Colletto to Laghi Gemelli and the Rifugio Gemelli. Fortunately the hut was open. As it had been a cold day and we were glad of a cup of hot chocolate. From the hut we took the path down between Lago Casere and Lago Marcio admiring the views across to Vescove and Vallegina. The path (212) joined up with path 211 which we retraced back to Corona. | |
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| Balcony path. | Lago Becco and Pico Becco. |
| Today was a day off for the leader, so there were no organised walks. Jackie, myself
and Phil decided to walk to the village of Branzi where we could catch a bus back to Foppolo.
To start we walked up to the Paso del Croce (1953m), and then took path 208 around the Carisole valley,
followed by path 210 down the valley to Corona.
Branzi
is a village at the junction of the valleys that lead up to Foppolo and Corona.
The tickets for the bus have to be bought before you board the bus. We brought ours from a
small cafe where we had a beer before returning to Foppolo.
Note from Jackie - given that I was with two brave men and the goat had large horns, you can guess who ended up going ahead to shoo it out of the way! |
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| Carisole Valley. | Carona Valley. |
| It was cold today but clear with blue skies which meant we got excellent views. The walk started from the hotel taking path 210 towards Paso di Porcile then branching off towards Cima Cadelle. We reached the summit to find a distinctive marker. We stayed a while at the summit taking in the views which were very extensive. The main party took a longer way back to Foppolo but Jackie, Betty and myself retraced our route of ascent back to Foppolo. | |
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| Cima Cadelle summit. | View east from Cima Cadelle summit. |
| Today we took the minibus to Porta just above the village of Carona. From Porta we followed path 210, and then path 224 to the Longo Hut. The hut had closed for the season. A short distance from the hut was the Lago del Diavolo. We retraced our steps to the junction with path 208, and then followed this back to Foppolo. | |
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| Carona village. | Rifugio Longo. |
| This walk was a good mountain walk from Foppolo. We climbed to the Passo di Dordona (2061m) and then on to the Barchetta di Lupi. From here we took a path that led up to the south ridge of Cima Valloci. This was a nice ridge with a bit of scrambling to be done. After about 200m of ascent we reached the summit of Cima Valloci. We returned to the joining point on the ridge, where the main party headed down the path to the Barchetta di Lupi. Three of us stayed on the ridge until the Barchetta. From the Barchetta di Lupi the way was back to the Passo di Dordona, and then the old military road back to Foppolo. | |
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| South ridge up to Cimma Valloci. | On the ridge. |
| Unfortunately it rained most of the day so no photographs from this walk. This was a great pity as Monte Cavallo is one of the peaks on the limestone ridge dominated by Monte Pergherolo to the South West of Foppolo. We took the bus to San Simone and followed the path to the Passo San Simone, From the pass we took a path which contured across the eastern side of Cavallo to a col south of the summit. From this point we walked up the south ridge to the summit of Monte Cavallo. The descent was down the West ridge for a short distance to pick up a path across the West side of the mountain back to the Passo San Simone, and back down to San Simone. |
This page was last updated on 9th February 2012.