“Only where you have walked on foot have you really been.” ~Reinhold Messner

We’ve known for years that we wanted to visit Italy’s Dolomites. We’ve also known for years that we wanted to take an active trip with Backroads. Backroads, founded in 1979 and based in California, will conduct over 4500 guided trips in 2024, allowing travelers to cycle, hike, and kayak their way through stunning locales worldwide. The trips are not inexpensive, so we’d been dreaming of this for about a decade. When we learned our sons planned to stay in their college town in Washington for the summer, we realized we could use our usual 4-person trip budget on just the two of us and decided to splurge and turn our dream into a reality. With the destination chosen (we can’t seem to get sick of Italy), the next decision was whether we wanted to cycle or hike our way through the Dolomites. We settled on hiking and chose to do a “hut-to-hut” trip where we would traverse from valley to valley, up over mountain passes, getting a close-up, personal experience of nature rather than a whiz-by-on-a-bike experience of it. We made the right choice.

On this first morning, we met in the lobby of our designated hotel in our departure city, Bolzano/Bolzen, in South Tyrol, Italy, to begin our exploration of the northwest area of the Dolomites. The Dolomites have contained a blend of Italian and German cultures since the end of WWI when the area once held by Austria-Hungary was ceded to Italy. In Bolzano, approximately half the population speaks German as their native tongue, while the other half speaks Italian. Truth is, though, most people in the area speak both. Here you will find schnitzel, dumplings, and strudel on the menu aside polenta, risotto, and tiramisu. Best of both worlds, really. Our guides, an Italian, Francesca, and a Slovenian, Petra, gathered up the 15 of us, gave us a brief description of the day, and loaded us onto a bus that would drop us at our hiking trail. As we headed north out of Bolzano into the foothills of the Dolomites, the landscape began to change dramatically. The canyon walls got closer, the vegetation became more lush, and we encountered some light rain. We were dropped at the entrance to Fannes-Braies-Sennes, the Dolomites’ gorgeous nature park, a UNESCO World Heritage area. Backroads schleps your bags between lodgings, so we donned our rain jackets and small daypacks and began our adventure. We would hike 7 miles to our lodging, stopping for lunch midway.

The rain fell lightly and we watched our footing, traversing cautiously over slippery tree roots and damp terrain. Wildflowers brightened the hike. We struck up easy conversations with our fellow travelers who hailed from across the U.S., from Washington to Vermont, Maine to Florida. We were hiking near a stream, under a canopy of tall pines, and the hike appeared to us like one we might do in our Colorado Rockies back home. The rain eased on and off repeatedly as we walked along. Soon we found ourselves at our lunch spot, set up outside a charming inn nestled in a cozy valley.

This was the first moment we experienced firsthand what Backroads does best. They spoil you. Waiting for us next to a small lake at the back of the inn was an elaborate picnic lunch set on two sheltered tables. The table was loaded with foods: sausage slices, cheese wedges, a variety of salads and breads, fresh fruit, and strudel. Petra told us it was our first strudel, not our last, and jokingly called our trip a strudel-to-strudel hike. Turns out she wasn’t kidding. So. Much. Strudel. While we ate, our guides shared with us a bit of information about the hearty Ladin people who live and work in the Dolomites and whose ancestors have resided there for thousands of years. Now a population of only about 30k, the Ladin people still employ their own, unique language and work to retain their cultural traditions and population by marrying within their community. These hardworking people maintain the land and the ski lifts and inns that dot the Dolomites. Their hospitality is gracious and efficient. Food is definitely their love language.

After we had polished off most of what had been presented, we picked up our hiking poles and set out again in the rain towards the Rifugio Pederü, our lodging for the next two nights. We were walking uphill, but it was a gradual climb and a perfect way to warm us up for the hiking that would follow the next two days. I was fully unprepared for the setting where we landed. The rifugio (Italian for “shelter”) was set at the back of a box canyon, which immediately made me a bit leery about how difficult our next hike might be. The only way out was up, way up. We settled into our room on the top floor (stairs are good practice for the climbing, right?) and opened the shutters to the most picturesque view from our balcony. We’d been told our lodging would become increasingly more impressive, but I was struggling to imagine how.

These “shelters” are rustic on the outside but well-equipped on the inside, so we helped ourselves to long, hot showers and headed down to dinner in the restaurant where we were treated to a welcome champagne cocktail and a menu as heavy as the one in a Cheesecake Factory. I’d recovered from my huge lunch on the hike and was so hungry by then I didn’t even bother to take a photo of my meal. Come to think of it, I didn’t return from our trip with many food photos at all. So at each meal I must have been too weak from hunger to lift my phone or too eager to wait. One thing about a Backroads adventure, there will be no lack of food or opportunity to earn it if that is your desire.

After dinner, we returned to our room and set out clothes for our early morning breakfast and departure. I’d spied our path out of the valley earlier in the evening and knew the next day was going to test me, so I checked off the accomplishment of Day One and mentally prepared myself for the challenge of the Day Two. So with the sun at last setting and the windows and drapes open, the fresh air of wild Italy filled our lungs and sent us off to sleep.