A valley for all seasons

If there wasn’t a map to prove it, Rachel Roberts wouldn’t believe she was in Italy on a recent trip to Val Gardena and the Dolomites.

"The echoes of our guide Paulie’s enthusiastic ‘Yodel-lay-hay-hay’ ricocheted between the Dolomite mountains that encircled us. We counted six echoes; an eerie, ethereal sound almost as if ancestors from the past were calling to the present.

Not that we would have understood a jot. It’s highly likely to have been in Ladin, the Romance language spoken by around 90% of the population in this unique pocket of northern Italy, known as the South Tyrol.

We’d heard it sung as a pre-meal toast by a family in a restaurant in Ortisei the previous evening. The tradition was to be our first insight into Val Gardena’s quirky, idiosyncratic personality on a late-September trip to the region.

During a two-hour journey from Verona airport, the familiar hallmarks of Italy – tightly woven vineyards, medieval monasteries and sleepy hillside villages – had fallen away. Chatter in the mini-bus came to a reverential hush as the Dolomite massifs hoved into view.

Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2009, this jagged mountain range is the stuff of fairytales. Known as the ‘Pale Mountains’ because of the white-grey colour of its rocks, when the sun shines (which it does, around 300 days a year), the mountain faces blush a candy pink. The magical change reveals the Dolomites’ beginnings as a giant coral reef in the primordial sea.

Scored through with vertical strata (rather than the usual horizontal), these mountains are pure drama and danger, making them the perfect backdrop for action movies including Cliffhanger and For Your Eyes Only.

We were based in the Alpine town of Selva, known as one of the ‘three stars’ of Val Gardena, alongside Santa Cristina and Ortise. The combined population of around 10,000 in the mountain ‘villages’ swells to around 270,000 in the winter season when the ski crowd arrives – mainly from Italy, Holland, Russia and the UK – to tackle the 3181m-high Sassolungo, one of the loftiest mountains in the Dolomites.

But unlike other ski resorts that can feel a little lackluster after the snow has melted, there’s no danger of getting bored here. Book into certain hotels, like the four-star Hotel Savoy in Selva, and you can take advantage of a full programme of activities offered as part of the package, from hikes to landscape photography, Laden language lessons and even traditional woodcarving, an important industry here since the 17th century. Families are well catered for, too, with creche facilities offering plenty of activities for the little ones.

Late summer is a great time to visit, when the peak season tourist crowds (around 195,000) have left. We encountered more wildlife than humans on our 5-mile hike around the Puez-Odle Nature Park with our yodeling guide. These included the wild Haflinger horses (nicknamed ‘Blondies’ because of their distinctive white, shaggy manes), mountain goats and marmots with their curious calls.

There is a 300km network of walking trails in Val Gardena, all clearly signposted, with timings between destinations, to make tourists’ lives as easy as possible. Combined with the air up here – around 1500m above sea level, on average – you’ll certainly work up a roaring appetite.

We tucked into a delicious feast at the Paratoni farm. Built in 1246, Gemma Insam and her family have lovingly restored one of Val Gardena’s oldest homesteads, and she uses herbs that grow plentifully on the land, like cumin and henry dandelion, in many of her recipes. Speck (a distinctly flavoured/smoked ham), creamy cheeses and mountain-sized hunks of beef are menu regulars in this part of the world too.

Those keen to find out about the local flora and fauna should tag along on Deigo Deiana’s informative tours. Tips we picked up from the herb expert included picking the black berries from an elderflower bush (red and green ones aren’t good) and to steep rosehips in water overnight to draw out their potent dose of Vitamin C. We also spotted clusters of the famed Alpine Eidelweiss flowers and learnt that these delicate white and blue flowers are actually surprisingly hardy, having first grown in Siberia and surviving the Ice Age.

Spa hotels are big business and dotted throughout the valley. They offer a space to recharge tired limbs after a day in the great outdoors, and harness the deep rejuvenating silence that prickles during daylight and becomes a comforting hush when night falls. Savvy visitors come off-season to avoid steep prices.

Electric bikes are becoming a bit of a ‘thing’ around these parts, too. Slightly chunkier than regular road bikes, these bicycles are fitted with small electric engines that give three levels of ‘assist’ and are super-simple to use. Yes, riders still have to put in a bit of effort, but you don’t have to be Sir Bradley Wiggins. The metal steeds make light work of some of Val Gardena’s steeper gradients, making a journey through the unforgettable landscape accessible to all fitness levels and ages. It’s a canny move by tourism bods to put Val Gardena on the map as an all-year-round, all-inclusive destination.