Dolomites

This is a mountain range, and swimming is a side activity. The famous high lakes, such as Braies, Carezza and Misurina, are for looking at and rowing on, and they stay too cold for most people. The real bathing is down in the valleys. Lake Caldaro on the South Tyrolean wine route is among the warmest lakes in the Alps, reaching about 24°C in midsummer, with lidos and grassy lawns rather than sand. The northern tip of Lake Garda around Riva is about an hour from Trento.

Many valley towns have outdoor pools and small swimming lakes that open from June to early September. A visitor who wants water every day should stay low, near Bolzano or Trento, and treat the high valleys as day trips.

Food here sits where Alpine and Italian cooking meet. South Tyrol serves speck, canederli dumplings, schlutzkrapfen pasta, goulash and apple strudel, and you can follow it with an espresso that is plainly Italian. Ladin valleys such as Gardena and Badia add their own dishes, and Trentino brings polenta, mountain cheeses and trout. The mountain huts are part of the pleasure. Lunch on a terrace at 2,000 metres, after a morning's walk or ski, is a central part of any stay.

Wine is a real draw. Lagrein, Schiava and Gewürztraminer come from the slopes south of Bolzano, where autumn Törggelen evenings bring new wine, chestnuts and farmhouse cooking. Alta Badia and the Puster Valley have an unusual number of high-end kitchens for such small villages. What the region lacks is range: outside Bolzano and Trento, nearly everything is local.

The Dolomites are listed by UNESCO for their landscape, and most of the built heritage lies in the valley towns. Bolzano has an arcaded medieval centre and the archaeology museum that houses Ötzi, the Iceman. Trento has a Romanesque cathedral and the Castello del Buonconsiglio with its frescoed rooms. Bressanone is a small bishop's town with a baroque cathedral and cloister, and nearby Novacella Abbey is a working Augustinian monastery.

Around these are castles such as Runkelstein, with its medieval secular frescoes, Ladin museums in the side valleys, onion-domed village churches and First World War trenches and tunnels on the high passes. A mountain museum series on climbing history is spread across several summits and castles. This makes good bad-weather days out, but few people come for the sights alone.

Evenings here are for dinner and early nights before the next day's hike or ski. In winter there is some après-ski at the foot of the slopes in Selva and Ortisei in Val Gardena, in Canazei in Val di Fassa and in Cortina, which also has a dressier crowd of wine bars. It tends to be music and drinks at the hut or bar until early evening, then quiet. Bolzano and Trento have student bars and wine bars around their old centres, but neither is a place people go out late.

In summer most villages are asleep by eleven. Visitors who want a night out every night will find little here.

Few mountain landscapes anywhere match this one. Pale limestone towers rise straight out of green meadows: the Tre Cime di Lavaredo, the Sassolungo, the Sella massif, the Marmolada glacier and the jagged ridge of Seceda. Lifts carry walkers high from almost every village. The Alpe di Siusi gives the gentlest high-pasture walking in the Alps, and long hut-to-hut routes such as the Alta Via 1 cross the range over a week or more. The via ferrata network, many of its cables first laid in the First World War, lets non-climbers onto the high rock.

In winter the Dolomiti Superski area links a dozen valleys, with the Sella Ronda circuit around one massif. June to October is for hiking, mountain biking and road cycling over the great passes. Bases such as Val Gardena, Alta Badia, Cortina and Val di Fassa put most of it within a lift ride.

The richest outings start from the Adige valley. From Bolzano, the spa town of Merano is under an hour away, and so are Bressanone and Trento. The South Tyrolean wine route runs through Caldaro and Termeno. Verona is about an hour and a half by train, and the lakeside towns at the north end of Lake Garda are a similar drive from Trento. Over the Brenner, Innsbruck is about two hours away.

On the eastern side, Cortina is the base for Belluno and the Cadore villages, and Venice is a long day at the edge of easy reach. From the high valleys every trip begins with a winding pass road, so a visitor who plans many outings should split the stay between a mountain village and a valley town.

In summer the Dolomites suit families very well. The Alpe di Siusi (Seiser Alm) and the Armentara meadows above Alta Badia have wide, nearly flat paths across high pasture, and lifts take the climbing out of the day. Many huts have playgrounds and farm animals, and several valleys have themed children's trails, adventure parks and summer toboggan runs. Villages are safe and calm, and many hotels are built around family stays, with children's clubs and pools.

In winter the ski schools are well organised, and most resorts have gentle nursery slopes. What the region lacks is zoos, aquariums or theme parks, so rainy days mean pools, the museums in Bolzano and Trento, or a long drive. Steep exposed trails and via ferrate are not for small children.

The valleys are well served, but the high country is harder to cross. In South Tyrol, regional trains run along the Adige and Puster valleys, and buses climb to most resorts and over the main passes, with one regional pass covering both. On the Belluno side, the railway from Venice and Padua runs up through Belluno to Calalzo di Cadore. Cortina itself has no station and depends on buses from Calalzo or from Dobbiaco in the Puster valley. Once you are in a village, lifts do much of the work, and the ski areas link whole valleys together.

The difficulty is moving between valleys. Pass roads are slow hairpins, often crowded with cars and motorbikes in July and August, and some passes limit traffic at times. Most visitors who want to see several areas hire a car. Those who stay in one valley can manage without one.

Shopping here is about crafts and local produce more than fashion. Val Gardena has carved wood for centuries, and workshops in Ortisei sell figures, nativity scenes and sacred art. Bolzano's medieval arcades on the Laubengasse hold old-established clothing, loden and food shops, and Cortina's main street has a short line of luxury boutiques and sports outfitters for its winter crowd.

The Advent markets in Bolzano, Merano, Bressanone and Brunico are among the best known in the Alps. All year, speck, mountain cheese, grappa and South Tyrolean wine are what most visitors carry home. Beyond that the range is narrow, mostly outdoor gear and souvenirs.

The Dolomites are expensive in their main seasons, from late December to March and in July and August. Cortina and Alta Badia are among the costliest resorts in Italy, and Val Gardena is not far behind. Lift passes, guided climbs and hut stays add up, and many hotels sell half board, which helps a little. Hut meals are fair for what they are.

The Trentino valleys such as Fassa and Fiemme, and towns such as Bolzano, Bressanone and Trento, cost less. June and September give the same mountains with lower room rates. A careful visitor can manage, but this is not a budget destination.

Performance life is modest and mostly seasonal. Bolzano is home to a regional orchestra with a year-round concert season and to a long-established international piano competition, and it has a municipal theatre. Trento has a similar orchestral and theatre programme. In summer there are concerts in remarkable settings: Trentino's mountain festival places musicians on alpine meadows and hut terraces, and a regional jazz festival plays castles, wineries and village squares.

Merano has an autumn music festival in its old spa halls. Village brass bands and folk evenings round out the calendar. Most of the year, though, a visitor will find little to attend.

Wellness here mostly means the hotel spa, and South Tyrol does it with unusual care. Many mountain hotels are built around saunas facing rock walls, heated outdoor pools in the snow and steam rooms scented with pine and alpine herbs. The hay bath is a farmers' tradition of resting in fermenting mountain hay, and it is still offered around Völs am Schlern below the Alpe di Siusi. Merano has been a spa town since the nineteenth century, and its public thermal baths stand in the town centre beside the river promenade. Trentino has smaller spa towns such as Levico Terme in the Valsugana.

Outside Merano there is little public bathing culture, so a visitor who wants this should choose the hotel with it in mind. The pace does the rest. Days follow the light and villages fall silent at night, and a stay in June or September is about as calm as a mountain vacation gets.