Day 5 – Back To The Gasthof Waldruhe

Jan 18, 2024

Today’s Adventure

For our Day 5 adventure Cindy and I hiked from San Candido to Sexten for lunch at one of our favorite restaurants – the Gasthof Waldruhe (https://www.gasthof-waldruhe.com/).

The trailhead for today’s hike was just a few blocks from our apartment, so we headed out for the five mile hike around 10:30 AM, giving us plenty of time for our 1:00 PM reservation (insert ominous music here).

The trail wandered through a larch forest with occasional keyhole views to the dramatic Sexten Dolomites. We had several inches of snow overnight so we didn’t see many other folks on the trail (just dog walkers, actually) so we were making first tracks for much of the distance.

One highlight of the hike was passing the Waldkapelle or ‘forest church’, an historic wooden chapel built in just 14 days for emergency use by local residents during the darkest times of World War I – for a period of time the front line of battle passed right through Sexten so the main church in town was simply not available.

The hike was going fine until we were just a couple of hundred yards from the restaurant – the trail was blocked by a forestry crew clearing trees and we couldn’t get past them for safety reasons. We ended up having to backtrack and take an alternative (and more difficult) trail to reach the Gasthof, fortunately just a half hour late.

We first discovered the Gasthof Waldruhe during a visit to the Dolomites in January of 2020. Since then we’ve become friends with the chef and owner, Stefan Senfter, and would not have missed the chance to drop by and say ‘hello’ to him and his wife Monica.

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 dot com, multiple Traveler’s Choice awards from TripAdvisor, and a number of complimentary articles in the Italian culinary press.

For lunch Stuart ordered the Wienerschnitzel with roasted potatoes – a dish that he knows well. Cindy had the ravioli made with beetroot pasta and stuffed with goat cheese. Both dishes were excellent, as always. Stefan then sat down with us to catch up while we shared the fresh-made apple pancakes with vanilla sauce for dessert.

After lunch we caught a ride with Stefan down the mountain into Sexten. Lucky for us he was making a bakery run in preparation for dinner service and the bus stop was on his way. We had hiked 6.2 miles with 2,172 feet of vertical before lunch so we weren’t about to say ‘no’ when he offered us a ride!

From the main bus stop in Sexten we caught a Südtirolmobil bus for the short ride back to San Candido. It turned out to be a very nice day, as expected, and we were treated to a grand sunset shortly after returning to our apartment.

For Innichen’s main page click here.

For Seefeld’s main page click here.

For the entire trip’s main page click here.