Day 8 – A Shore Thing In Lago di Molveno

Oct 15, 2022

Today’s Adventure

On Saturday Cindy and I took an unplanned overnight trip from our base in Brixen to the Brenta Dolomites, a group of mountains south of Bolzano and centered around the beautiful Lago di Molveno.

Ordinarily this outing would have made for a very long day trip but we really wanted to see this area. Studying our options made it clear that any kind of meaningful visit would require an overnight stay. With this in mind we reserved a night at a mountain rifugio, stuck some essentials in our backpacks, and hopped on board an early morning Trenitalia train headed south.

The train took us through Bolzano to Mezzocorona, one of the larger towns in an agricultural valley that is well-known for apple and grape production. From there we took a regional bus up a very steep and twisty mountain road to the lakeside resort town of Molveno. In case you’re wondering the Italian word for ‘hairpin’ is ‘tornente’ – we learned that one from the many warning signs along the roadway!

Molveno sits at the northern point of the logically-named Lago di Molveno and in fact is the only town on the lake, so the shoreline of this gem is largely unspoiled. Sadly when we arrived in Molveno the lake was mostly fogged in and a light rain was falling. Given the conditions we opted to find a cafe with covered outdoor seating for a cappuccino (much needed after our early departure) and a couple of fresh-baked cornetti.

The rain finally stopped a short time later so we started out on the ‘Passeggiata Giro Del Lago’, a shoreline trail that took us all the way around the lake, albeit mostly in a cool mist. At the three-quarter point of our circuit we found ourselves a) ready for lunch and b) at the base of a trail that headed up a very steep trail to the Baita ai Fortini di Napoleone, a very small (but charming) mountain rifugio with a very large name. The rifugio’s name is a reference to the fortifications that were built nearby to defend against Napoleon’s advance into this region.

The timing was no accident as Cindy had planned our hike to put us at this rifugio somewhere around lunchtime. After snapping a rather misty ‘Two Beers with a View’ we ordered our lunch. Cindy chose the homemade tagliatelle pasta with local mushrooms while Stuart chose the homemade polenta gnocchi with crispy speck.

After a nice hot lunch we finished the loop around the lake. By the time we arrived back in Molveno we had logged 7.9 miles for the day. It was long way around the lake, but fortunately Molveno is fairly small so we didn’t log much more distance getting to the base station for the Funivie Molveno-Pradel. This was the cable car and chair lift combination that would take us even further up into the mountains to our overnight accommodations.

We checked in to the Rifugio La Montanaro, a popular hiking destination in the summer and a skiing destination in the winter thanks to a lovely setting high in the Brenta Dolomites. We strolled around the grounds and took a quick nap before going downstairs to dinner. It was a surprisingly formal affair complete with linen table cloths and dried edelweiss adorning our placesetting. When we turned in for the evening we had high hopes that the weather would break overnight so that we could take in what were expected to be spectacular views in the morning.

To return to the main page for Brixen click here.

To return to the main page for the entire trip click here.