Almost every year for the past 20 years, we have travelled to Europe to hike - mostly in the Alps and Pyrenees, sometimes in the UK. We had always planned to hike in the Dolomites in North Eastern Italy, and I had collected several Cicerone books by Gillian Price on walks there. In June 2023, following our return from hiking the South West Coast path in the UK, we decided it was time to visit the Dolomites. A quick search for the best time to go re accommodation in mountain huts, suggested that late August/early September was the best time. However as the weeks passed, we soon realised that the Dolomites was an extremely popular place for tourists and hikers even until mid September. But with more than 1,000 huts in the Dolomites area, I thought that we should be OK to find and book accommodation. Not so.
Our plan was to walk 160k on the AV2 (Alt Via 2 Italy) from Bressanone in the north to Feltre in the south of the Dolomites from about August 24th through to mid September. But several of the crucial huts at the beginning and end of the hike were already full, so I needed to work around a few variations by changing the start and finish. Also, the best flights for standby were in early August, in between school holidays in Australia. So the plan quickly changed to spending a few days in Munich then two weeks in the Dolomites area based in several towns prior to the AV2 walk. This became our new schedule.
August 6th: Depart Brisbane to Munich
August 7th to 11th: Munich, Germany
August 11th to 17th: Cortina, Eastern Dolomites, Italy
August 17th to 24th: Bolzano, Western Dolomites, Italy
August 24th to September 6th: 12 day hike AV2 from Ortisei to San Martino di Castrozza
August 7th: Depart Munich to Brisbane