The Dolomites in Summer

High cuisine, via ferrata and Europe's great Alpine secret — the case for the Italian Alps in the months when most travellers think of the sea.

The Italian Dolomites in summer are perhaps the best-kept open secret in European travel. The North Americans who know the Dolomites largely know them as a winter destination; the Italians who know them best go in summer. The reason is simple: the same peaks that in February frame the ski terrain become, between June and September, the setting for what is, in our considered view, the finest mountain walking, the finest mountain dining, and one of the finest concentrations of summer wellness anywhere in the Alps.

Why Most Visitors Miss It

The summer Dolomites are missed by international visitors for two reasons, both correctable. First, the brand association of Italy in summer is the sea — Capri, Positano, Sardinia — and the Italian mountains compete in the visitor imagination only as a winter destination. Second, the practical infrastructure for summer travel — when to go, where to stay, how to plan the days — is harder to assemble at a distance than the equivalent for the coast. The result is that the Italian summer Dolomites, in July and August, are populated overwhelmingly by Italians, Germans, and Austrians, with a small leavening of British walkers and almost no American or Asian visitors at all.

For our clients this is, of course, the recommendation. The peaks are at their most spectacular in August. The temperatures at altitude — the chalets at sixteen hundred metres — are a perfect twenty-three by midday and twelve by night. The mountain hutting for lunches and dinners is at its widest reach. The wellness offering at the major hotels is at its peak. And the specifically Italian Dolomite cuisine — a hybrid of Tyrolean and Veneto traditions, with Slow Food at its centre — is at its most generous.

The Walking, In Its Forms

There are three distinct ways to walk in the Dolomites in summer, and each suits a different kind of client. The first is the rifugio-to-rifugio multi-day trek, of which the classic Alta Via 1 from Lago di Braies to Belluno is the best-known example. This is a serious commitment — eight to twelve days of mountain walking with overnights in mountain huts at altitude — and it suits clients who have done this kind of walking before. We arrange it with mountain guides from the Italian Alpine Club's professional register, with luggage portage between huts.

The second is the day-walking from a single base, returning to the comfort of a four- or five-star hotel each evening. This is, for most of our clients, the right level of engagement. A morning by chairlift to a rifugio at two thousand metres, a day's walk along a high traverse with a guide, a long lunch at a second rifugio, an afternoon descent, a private hour in the hotel sauna, a dinner at the property's starred restaurant. We arrange weeks of this rhythm and they are, almost without exception, the most-praised weeks in our practice.

The third is the via ferrata — the assisted climbing routes that the Italians invented in the First World War and have made into one of the great Alpine sports. A via ferrata day is harder than a hiking day and easier than a true climbing day; it suits clients who want a more immersive engagement with the rock without the technical commitment of true alpinism. Our guides choose the route based on the client's experience and condition.

The Tables of the Mountain

The Dolomite kitchen is one of the most under-celebrated regional cuisines in Italy, and the constellation of starred and high-quality restaurants in the Alta Badia and the Val Gardena is, for the size of the population, almost absurdly dense. Three Michelin stars at Sankt Hubertus in San Cassiano under Norbert Niederkofler, with a kitchen that draws entirely on a strict regional sourcing protocol. Three at La Stüa de Michil at La Perla in Corvara. Two at La Siriola at the Hotel Ciasa Salares. One each at La Tana, La Stua, La Jelina, the Schwarz Adler in Valle Aurina. And a network of mountain rifugi that, in their less formal way, serve some of the best lunches in the Italian Alps.

We plan the dinners with the chefs in advance. The lunches at altitude — the Rifugio Lagazuoi, the Rifugio Scotoni, the Ütia de Bioch — we leave to the day, depending on the walking. A long lunch at altitude in the summer Dolomites, with a glass of Lagrein and the peaks in the middle distance, is among the more reliable pleasures of European travel.

Where to Base

The choice of base in the summer Dolomites is consequential. We work most often with three properties. The Rosa Alpina in San Cassiano, recently reopened under the Aman group, is the most internationally recognised of the Italian Alpine hotels and remains an excellent choice for a first visit; its Sankt Hubertus restaurant is a destination in its own right. The Ciasa Salares in San Cassiano, family-owned, is for clients who want a more intimate scale. The Rosapetra in Cortina is the most refined of the Cortina properties and offers the broadest day-walking access from the town.

For clients who want more than a hotel, we arrange private chalets — the same inventory we curate in winter, taken in summer at a fraction of the winter rate. A six-bedroom chalet above San Cassiano in late August, with a private chef, a guide on retainer for the daily walks, and the wellness floor open all day, is among the more considered weeks the European summer offers. It does not pretend to be an extension of the coastal holiday. It is, deliberately, its alternative.