Annecy

Our month-long adventure in the Dolomites started in the charming mountain village of Badia (or Abtei in German).  Badia is part of the Alta Badia four season resort area, a mecca for a wide variety of winter and summer sports. The resort, which also includes the neighboring villages of La Villa, San Cassiano, Corvara, and Colfosco, is rather well known in European circles but generally unknown to Americans.

Badia has around 3,500 residents and is nestled in the higher reaches of Val Badia, a sunny alpine valley that runs southward from the ancient but quite hip town of Brunico in Val Pusteria.  The valley is nestled in between the Puez-Odle and Fanes-Senes-Braies Nature Parks so there is very good access to excellent hiking from various points along the Strada Statale 244 di Val Badia (SS 244).  The valley is dominated by a number of major rock formations including the Sellagruppe massif, the Sassongher peak, the Gardenaccia highlands, and the imposing Sas dla Crusc mountain so the scenery is excellent as well.

Val Badia is steep in tradition as well as terrain.  It is home to one of several remaining enclaves of ethnic Ladin (lah-deen), a people who are justifiably proud of their rich culture and a long history of settlement in the region dating back thousands of years.  Their unique written and spoken language, also called Ladin, developed from the vulgar Latin brought to the region by Roman soldiers many centuries ago.  Ladin remains the primary language for the majority of the valley’s residents and is found in the local newspapers, radio broadcasts, television programs and even the school curriculum.  The Ladin people flourished in the relative isolation resulting from the rugged mountain terrain.  While Val Badia’s access to the outside world has obviously improved both physically and electronically, the unique Ladin culture is still clearly seen in the valley’s art, architecture, music, theater, holidays, and food.

We arrived in Badia late in the afternoon of Wednesday, September 21.  We started our 28 hour journey in Richmond, Virginia where we boarded a Delta commuter flight to Atlanta.  From there we took Delta flight 130 for the trans-Atlantic hop to Munich.  After clearing customs at Munich Airport we hopped on an S-Bahn commuter train for the short 30-minute ride to the München-Ostbahnhof, a secondary rail station located just east of the city center.  From there a Deutsche Bahn EuroCity express train took us three hours south through Innsbruck, Austria, and the historic Brenner Pass to Fortezza, Italy. At Fortezza we switched to a smaller regional SAD (Società Automobilistica Dolomiti) train, known locally as the Pustertalbahn, for a quick 30 minute ride to St. Lorenzen.   We then boarded a local bus for our ride up the valley to Badia.  We arrived at our hotel right at 5:00, more than ready for a quick shower, a cold beer, a hot meal, and some well-earned sleep.

If you’ve followed any of our past European travels you know that we usually we stay in fully-furnished vacation apartments but for this relatively short 3-night stay we opted to stay in a hotel instead. Our choice was the Ustaria Posta, a small family-owned hotel dating back to 1877.  At various times over the years the building has housed not only the lodging but a bakery and post office as well, so it has a very interesting history!

The current owners, Igor and Claudia Tavella, are the fourth generation to run the hotel.  Igor, a champion cyclocross racer in his younger days, has done a great job of promoting Alta Badia in general and the Ustaria Posta in particular via his multiple social media channels.  In fact we first learned of Alta Badia and decided to add it to our itinerary after watching many of his YouTube videos about skiing, biking, hiking, and even cooking (!) in the area.

This was our first visit to Alta Badia, but it won’t be our last. Be sure to check out our blog below to read more about our adventures in this very special part of Südtirol!