Day 10 – A Hike From Laion to Gudon

Oct 17, 2022

Today’s Adventure

For today’s adventure we hopped on a Südtirolmobil bus headed south, passed through Chiusa, and then turned east up the Val Gardena to a small village called Laion. We had seen signs for Laion on our way to Ortisei earlier on this trip but because the town sits high up on the northern wall of the valley we did not have a chance to visit. From the bus stop we made a quick visit to the tourist information center (part of the Town Hall, as was often the case in smaller towns during this adventure) and then found our trailhead.

Heading north on Trail 4 we were treated to lovely views out across the Val Isarco towards Villandro and eventually down into Chiusa. There were a lot of fall colors on display along the trail as we skirted a surprising amount of open farmland, much of it used for grazing some very happy-looking cows. We could also see how the vineyards on the opposite slope of the Val Isarco were turning a golden color to signal the impending arrival of winter. We continued along the trail until we reached the small town of Gudon (also known as Gufiduan), which was just south of the entrance to Val di Funes.

In Gudon we had lunch at the restaurant Turmwirt (https://www.turmwirt-gufidaun.com/en/), which translates to ‘the tower keeper’. We had a lovely table on the sun terrace that had a marvelous view of the Schloss Summersberg, the castle whose towers gave the restaurant its name. It seems that on each of our European adventures we end up having one big splurge lunch – and today got the award for this trip. We each ordered their roast saddle of venison, which came with potato fritters and mixed fresh vegetables. The service was classically European (very professional) and the food was excellent.

As with all great restaurants (at least in our opinion) this one had a cool greeter cat that visited us at our table. The young gray tiger was quite friendly and came trotting over to say ‘hello’ as soon as we sat down. Before lunch was over he was on his back and getting a belly rub from Stuart, so obviously he liked people – or maybe just customers that ordered the venison.

After lunch we strolled through Gudon before heading downhill towards Chiusa. The trail alternated between well-marked and non-existent, so of course we managed to get lost a couple of times before arriving in the relatively large town of Chiusa. We found our way to the Bahnhof and caught the train for a very quick ride back to Brixen. We made our usual loop through the Old Town for gelato before heading back to the apartment for a nice dinner and a quiet evening watching college football from our cloud DVR on YouTubeTV.

To return to the main page for Brixen click here.

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