San Candido, Dolomites
Tre Cime Area (Drei Zinnen) and Nearby
September 12, 2025
We left Slovenia and drove north over the mountains into Austria. The first part of the drive offered views of the same Alps we saw around the Logar Valley. But then we descended into less interesting forested foothills.
Eventually we entered an agricultural area and were surprised, again, at how much corn is grown in the region. We hooked up with the expressway near Klagenfurt and drove west through Villach and Lienz before driving through a mountainous valley and entering Italy.
When we got to San Candido (where we will spend four nights) [German name Innichen, we will always prefer the Italian versions of the place names], we turned towards to Sesto [Sexten] and went beyond to the new cable car that goes up to Stiergarten at 2,100 meters. The cable car is called Tre Cime [Drei Zinnen] because it offers a view of the mountain peaks Tre Cime di Lavaredo, but today’s clouds made it difficult to make them out.
Top photo is the upper lift station. Top right and above are views from the top. To the right is a photo taken on descent.
The cable car ride took about ten minutes to go up and we walked around a bit before sitting on a well- located bench to wait for the sun to shine on the mountains. It shined on us, but only a little on the mountains.
This lift, like the others we will ride over the next few days, is fully automated. There are no attendants, you scan your ticket and walk into the car when the doors open. We noted that the car is very similar to the gondola at the Oakland zoo and holds up to 8 passengers, although there were few today.
We took the cable car back down and drove back to San Candido, a town of about 3,500, where we checked into our hotel in the center of town. After unpacking, we went out and walked around the nice town, admiring its two churches and its lively pedestrian area. We then spent some time trying to figure out how to use our bus passes in the next few days to see what we want to see!
Here are three photos taken from the roof deck of our San Candido hotel.
This one shows the chair lift that goes from the edge of town.
September 13, 2025
We woke up to a cloudy day, but decided to go for a hike, regardless, since no rain was forecast until the evening. Our hotel stay included a Süd–Tirol Pass, which gave us unlimited rides on regional buses and trains. We decided to try a bus and rode about 25 minutes to a hike located in the Val Fiscalina [Fischleintal]. This is in the same general area where we rode the lift yesterday, south of Sesto.
We hiked on a wide, fairly smooth but gently uphill path for about 2 km to a mountain hut. During the first part of the walk we were accompanied by runners in a race uphill. We had views of the Tre Cime from the trail. We hoped the sun would come out, and it did eventually shine on us, but like yesterday, not so much on the mountain tops. Nonetheless, it was a beautiful walk over about one hour and fifteen minutes, including having coffee at the hut.
Here are some photos from the hike.
There was a children’s play area at the hut. There were many similar (often bigger) at other places we visited. To the left is the trail, taken while hiking back to the bus stop.
We then caught the bus back to San Candido, arriving in about 25 minutes, and got the rental car out of the hotel’s garage. We drove west through the Val Pusteria [Puster] to the vicinity of Brunico [Bruneck]. There we parked the car near the bottom of a cable car, and had lunch at a nearby restaurant. We then rode the Kronberg 2000 cable car up to Kronplatz at a bit over 7,500 feet above sea level. This flat topped mountain has service from many different lifts, and has a walking trail that takes a 360 degree loop around the mountain top.
The clouds were blowing by and from time to time we had good views down to the valley and to the mountains in the southerly direction. The mountain was popular with trail bikers (who brought their bikes up on the cable car and then road down) and hang gliders. The highlight of this visit were the two museums located on the mountain’s top.
The first museum we visited was the Messner Mountain Museum, aka MMM, which is dedicated to historic mountain climbing world-wide. El Capitan in Yosemite is featured. It also displays works of art depicting famous mountains. The building is a marvel, somewhat buried into the mountain top and was designed by Zaha Hadid.
Above, view from Kronplatz. Below, two photos of the MMM.
The second museum we visited was Lumen, which is a museum dedicated to mountain photography. Some of its most fascinating photos are of early mountain exploration from the middle and late 19th century. We enjoyed this museum immensely. These photos show the building.
We then took the cable car back down (a journey of about 15 minutes) and drove back to the east toward San Candido. We took a brief detour to Dobbiaco [Toblach], which is dominated by a green church tower with a nice onion dome. That was hard to photograph, so here is a photo of a different church.
September 14, 2025
When we woke up this morning, it was still very cloudy. Our iPhone weather forecast showed it would either be sunny or rain at 10 am. We took the optimistic outlook and set out for a hike.
We drove about a half hour to the parking area at Ponticello [Bruckele], which is the gateway to the Prato Piazza [Plätzwiese]. At this location, there is a gate to regulate access to the road beyond between the hours of 10 am and 3 pm. Arriving around 9 am on a Sunday, we were unsure if there still be parking available at the end of the road. The attendant said we could go, and asked for €10, a bargain we thought. We then drove about another 15 minutes on the narrow road, which had one section with a traffic light regulating the direction of travel over the narrow road.
We parked the car and started off on a hike on a wide, smooth path. The sun was out on some of the neighboring mountains. The clouds would come and go over them during the morning. But…no rain!
These two photos
were taken near
the beginning
of the walk.
We walked about 45 minutes (due to many stops for photos) to the mountain hut called Rifgiuo Vallandro. Here we sat on the patio looking out at Mt Cristallo while drinking coffee. We saw quite a few additional hikers heading up the path to climb a nearby mountain (Monte Specie), but our location was far enough for us today! When studying the map, we also saw that it was possible to reach this hut from the south by a longer trail (we had come from the north). We were very impressed by the accessibility of the mountains and huts in this area of the Dolomites. It makes hiking so civilized to have a comfortable place to rest and eat or drink on your journey.
Note all the features meant to make the hikes easier—facilities for dogs (and many dogs of all sizes made the hike), well-placed benches and signage.
Photo above right shows the Vallandro hut where we had coffee.
The walk up here had been easier than expected, so we decided take a more challenging route back to the car parking lot. This involved climbing higher, with views above the first path we took, while dodging horses and cows and fording two streams.
A bit more than half-way back to our car, we stopped at a mountain restaurant for more coffee and decided to stay for lunch. We were intermittently serenaded by an accordion player. After finishing lunch, we walked gingerly down the steep path back to our car. A few more photos.
The horses appeared more menacing than the cows.
But we passed both without incident.
We had spent about three and a half hours enjoying the area around Prato Piazza, a perfect Dolomite location. We then drove twenty minutes or so to Lago Braies [Pragser Wildsee], which has become a bit too popular for its own good. The lake is a beautiful blue/green color, ringed by tall mountains. But it is very heavily touristed. The lake was full of tourists rowing wooden row boats, no motors allowed, taking selfies and crowding the lakeside cafes.
Two photos on
the way to
Lake Braies.
Below are photos the beautiful lake (with many other tourists).
We spent about a half hour walking around and decided to press ahead and drove back to San Candido. The sun was now shining brightly and the town was bustling in the sunshine with an outdoor weekend market, now in its second day. We had ice cream before visiting the Romanesque cathedral, which had a surprise for us, it dates from the 12th and 13th centuries. The apse was decorated with frescoes. We then strolled through the market, admiring the large beer garden, the elderly musician singing Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” in German and the two-man guitar and accordion band playing more upbeat music.
This photo was taken approaching San Candido.
Photos below were taken around town.
Inside of the collegiate church.
The bustling market.
Here is a map of our travels in the Dolomites.
We had a wonderful day in the Dolomites today (walking close to 7 miles, same as yesterday) and hope for more tomorrow, our last day here before starting our journey back to Munich.
