Day 3 – Back To The Gasthof Waldruhe

Sep 27, 2022

Today’s Adventure

On Tuesday Cindy and I headed out to Sesto for lunch at one of our favorite restaurants – the Gasthof Waldruhe (https://www.gasthof-waldruhe.com). The weather was overcast and rainy so we took a regional bus to Sesto instead of hiking as originally planned. It was a short ride from Innichen to the church of St. Peter and St. Paul on the valley floor in Sesto. From there the two mile hike to the Gasthof Waldruhe was almost entirely uphill and quite steep, so we definitely earned our lunch.

We first discovered the Gasthof Waldruhe during our visit to the Dolomites in January of 2020. There’s a lot of history here – the land where the restaurant is located and the surrounding farm have been in the same family since 1480! We’ve become friends with the owner, Stefan Senfter, since our first visit and would not have missed the chance to drop by and say ‘hello’ while we were in the area. Over the last couple of decades Stefan has made the interesting transition from snowboarding champion to award-winning chef and innkeeper – see https://www.sesto.it/en/story/lo-speck/. He has obviously found his true calling based on top ratings on Google and Booking.com, a Traveler’s Choice 2022 award from TripAdvisor, and a number of complimentary articles in the Italian culinary press.

Cindy ordered the trio of traditional Südtirolean dumplings – spinach, porcini mushrooms, and cheese. Stuart had the ravioli made with beetroot pasta and stuffed with goat cheese. There may have been some butter involved. For dessert we shared the apple pancakes with vanilla sauce.

After we finished our lunch the weather was clearing so we moved out onto the back deck to enjoy two grappas with a view – what a nice way to end our meal. The weather was improving quickly by this point (welcome to the mountains) and the blue skies showing to the north convinced us to walk back to Innichen instead of taking the bus. All told we hiked about six miles this day.

If you’re ever in Südtirol we highly recommend a visit to see Stefan and the Gasthof Waldruhe!

To return to the main page for Innichen click here.

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