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What I do after a European trip

20 January 2025.

Getting home from a trip there’s a lot to do in a jet-lagged state: unpacking, laundry, restocking the pantry and refrigerator, doing the delayed fall garden chores, convincing the cats we still love them.

But the real work starts once jet lag passes: organizing photos and updating our books. This takes hours and hours to ensure the accuracy of every recommended URL, the schedules for buses and lifts, the most recent transportation pass offers, and to write up new hikes and changes to prior recommendations. Ah, retirement! But this is a job.

January 1 we published the 4^th edition of “Walking in Switzerland’ Berner Oberland” and January 18, “Walking in Italy’s Val Gardena” came out in its 6^th iteration.

For those dreaming about these locations, we offer inspiration to plan the trip with logistics seldom found concisely presented online. From transportation to trailheads, each walk or hike is described clearly so you can be certain every hike is within your ability.

Here’s a description of each book and a link to purchase in the US. For other markets, consult your respective Amazon site.

Walking in Italy’s Val Gardena

There are many hiking guides to Italy’s Dolomites featuring long treks of 4-6 hours, as well as multi-day ventures and the famous via ferrata. What makes this one so special? This is a guide to easier options for walking in Italy’s breathtaking Val Gardena! Seniors, people with children, and anyone who wants to experience the mountains but not climb them will benefit from the 23 walks that are carefully described.

We guide the hiker through the breathtaking scenery using itineraries suitable for anyone who likes to walk, likes to be in nature, and who enjoys Italy, but may not have the stamina for longer, more strenuous hikes.

This unique guide includes 23 walks in-and-near the Val Gardena towns of Ortisei, Selva, and Santa Cristina, as well information on when to visit, how to get around without a car, and sample itineraries to help you plan your stay of 3, 5, 7 or more nights. Of special interest will be the easy hikes in the amazing Alpe di Siusi.

Included are maps, directions to the trailheads, walking time and distance, where to eat along the trail, beautiful photographs, and details on how to use the system of mountain lifts and buses to access the high meadows and breathtaking Dolomite views. You will discover delightful rifugi, mountain restaurants offering shelter and great food making each walk a special expedition. In addition, every walk is accessible by public transportation!

The authors travel to Ortisei frequently exploring this mountain paradise discovering and documenting the walks to share with you so you can be certain every hike is within your ability.

Walking in Switzerland’s Berner Oberland

Switzerland’s Berner Oberland is a hiker’s paradise, whether you like easy paths or dream of attempting the Via Ferrata. This book will guide you through breathtaking scenery using itineraries suitable for anyone who likes to walk, likes to be in nature, but may not have the stamina for longer, more strenuous hikes. Seniors, people with children, and anyone who wants to experience the mountains but not climb them will benefit from the 21 walks that are carefully described. Also included are instructions on local transportation, sample itineraries to help you plan your stay of 3, 5, 7 or more nights, and suggestions for other excursions as well as rainy-day ideas.

The authors travel to Switzerland frequently exploring this mountain paradise completely via public transportation, discovering and documenting the walks. Even non-walkers will revel in the scenery as they ride mountain trains and enclosed gondola cars to amazing vistas.

What do I do after a European trip and after the book updates are published? Plan the next trip! Most likely with a cat or two in my lap.

Sven and Molly are happy to have us home.

Tags: Books, dolomites, europe, Hiking, Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland, Travel, Val Gardenia

Comments 7 Comments
Categories Books, Dolomites, Hiking, Italy, Switzerland, Travel, Val Gardena

Two Books for 2022

20 Feb

19 February 2022.

**Perhaps I should repurpose my worn out boots like this Swiss gardener did.**

EDITORS NOTE: These books were updated in 2025. Here are the links to the current editions, US site. Walking in Italy’s Val Gardena and Walking in Switzerland’s Berner Oberland . If you are purchasing from another market (UK, DE, etc.) please go to your country’s page and be sure to look for the 2025 editions.

1.2 million steps. That’s what my Fitbit logged on our trip last fall to update our two easy-hiking books. Converting that to miles, between 400-480 miles in 10 weeks.

No wonder I needed a new pair of hiking boots when we got home.

Those steps have come to fruition at last: the 2nd edition of Walking in Switzerland’s Berner Oberland (updated link to th edition in Jan 2025) and the 4^th edition of Walking in Italy’s Val Gardena are now available on Amazon in all markets worldwide in Kindle and in paperback. (These URLs are to the US site. Listed below are links to the sites for the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. Please search your country’s Amazon site – Italy, Germany, Japan, 4India, etc. – if you are buying elsewhere.)

The Val Gardena book still features 23 hikes and minimal changes were made in this edition. We checked the local information and retook many of the hikes, rechecked URLs, transportation, cost of passes, and so on. For those with earlier versions, there are not a lot of changes and significant ones are noted on our updates page at ProjectEasyHiker.com.

An outing not in the book is one we call “A Path to Lunch,” an easy but satisfying outing in the Val Gardena that can be split into two shorter walks.

Seven new hikes were added to the Berner Oberland book for a new total of 20 outings. We spent 28 nights researching in the area last fall and never ran out of ideas for easy hikes. While the new book is the only place we’ve written up all of the new hikes, updates to walks featured in the first edition are on ProjectEasyHiker.com.

All of the hikes in both books feature maps and all of the maps are available to download to your mobile device.

Most notable this visit versus our last trip in 2019, there are now great apps for transportation in both Switzerland and the Südtirol. The SBB app links travelers to all modes of transportation: train, bus, boat, and mountain lifts with an interconnected route planner. It is also an easy platform for buying tickets on the go.

In the Südtirol, the südtirolmobil app offers timetables and a trip planner that are invaluable when you are on-the-go.

As always, we are happy to answer questions and get your feedback. Please drop us a note at ProjectEasyHiker@gmail.com.

Happy Hiking!

UK sites: Walking in Italy’s Val Gardena and Walking in Switzerland’s Berner Oberland

CA sites: Walking in Italy’s Val Gardena and Walking in Switzerland’s Berner Oberland

AU sites: Walking in Italy’s Val Gardena and Walking in Switzerland’s Berner Oberland.

All other markets, please search your respective Amazon site.

(Link usdated to newest versions in January 2025.)

Tags: Berner Oberland, dolomites, Hiking, Switzerland, Val Gardenia

Comments 8 Comments
Categories Books, Dolomites, Hiking, Ortisei, Switzerland, Travel, Val Gardena

Walking off the pizza

19 Sep

19 September 2019.

It is so wonderful to have fine Italian pizza again! Nothing in the U.S. compares, for us. Here, we each eat an entire pizza and while full, we never feel bloated or grotesque. And my jeans still zip the next morning.

The culprit: Pizza Golosa, which means ‘delicious’ or ‘gluttonous.’ Fresh mushrooms and cherry tomatoes with spicy salami and gorgonzola. Ric had a Siciliana with anchovies, capers, and olives.

Italian pizza crust is made from a type of flour that is more digestible. (Ask any Italian about digestibility and you’ll be entertained for hours.) The toppings are fresh and pure and distributed with a light hand. Each ingredient shines on its own and together, well, Mamma mia what a product!

Pizzeria & Steakhouse La Tambra in Santa Cristina is our favorite in the Val Gardena. Usually, we make the trek to La Tambra in the evening catching the infrequent and elusive night bus back to Ortisei. The other day, while tromping around on Monte Pana and Mont de Sëura, we realized that it was almost lunchtime and Santa Cristina was only a chairlift away. Does La Tambra serve pizza at lunch? Turns out they do, and as it was a sunny day, we could dine on the terrace. But what to do after lunch? It was only 14:30 and we certainly could use some steps to retard the growth of fat cells after eating THE WHOLE THING.

Ric’s idea? Walk back to Ortisei on the Sentiero del Trenino. This mostly level path takes one between the towns of Santa Cristina and Ortisei where the WWI supply train ran from 1916-1918. Eventually, it became a tourist train which operated until 1960. This area was part of Austria when the railway was built and was annexed by the Kingdom of Italy after WWI. Some 6000 Russian and Serbian POWs were conscripted to build the line, which they accomplished in only 5 months of brutal day-and-night labor.

Photo from one of the informative panels along the route. 6000 Russian prisoners and 3500 locals were employed in building the WWI rail line to resupply the front. This was Austria at the time.

We started our walk a bit before the official start of the path, launching our pizza-stuffed selves off the terrace of La Tambra and making our way up to the picturesque church in Santa Cristina. The cemetery is stunning and beautifully maintained by the families. Seasonal flowers are planted on each gravesite.

More-or-less beneath the church, a tunnel used by the narrow-gauge train was reopened in 2017 with informative displays about the line. It is well worth a 15-minute detour to walk the 203-meter tunnel and study the displays. The tiny renovated station house (from tourist train days) has short films of the trains in action.

Click any photo for more detail and a slide show.

Looks like a model train set but it is the refreshed tunnel and tiny station building for the old narrow-gauge railway.

The tunnel is a short walk (203 meters), even pavement, well-lighted, with historical panels.

How the train looked in happier times, ferrying tourists.

Informative panel depicts the old route used first in WWI to supply the Dolomites front and then as a tourist train until 1960.

An entry in the journal of the priest from Nov 1918. Austria lost this region to Italy in WWI.

I am including this for those who might try to find their way here. We missed the sign and overshot so entered from the western end. Coming up form the Tourist Info Office, watch for this sign and turn right to find the eastern entrance.

Continuing on after the church, one heads steeply downhill. We encountered cyclists going both directions but felt exceedingly sorry for one guy who was pushing a pram uphill while his wife struggled along behind. We’ve done this hill in both directions and would vote to go down every time. Ugh!

This path is steeper than it looks. After this descent the rest of the path is mostly level.

Then the path levels out and it is a delightful stroll to Ortisei, past farms, playgrounds, and beautiful hotels. Sunny vistas are interspersed with forested sections. The 3 miles passed quickly, taking about 90 minutes including the train tunnel detour.

At least we made a dent in those pizza calories since we are back on the weekly pizza plan during out trip!

Click any photo for more detail and a slide show.

This sign on a rather modern-looking hotel, compares the local Sassolungo to the Burj in Dubai.

One passes several lovely hotels and guests residences along the path.

Farmers are still raking up grasses to store for winter feed once the cows are brought down from the high pastures.

Most of the path is level as it was a railway line from WWI.

One of the pretty sights along the path.

Coming into lovely Ortisei after our 3 mile, hour-and-twenty-minute walk.

Ortisei’s church is iconic, and this is where the railway passed through town thanks to a tunnel.

The view back to the Sella Group and Sassolungo from Ortisei, every garden bedecked with flowers.

Tags: Austria, dolomites, History, ortisei, Santa Cristina, Val Gardenia, WWII

Comments 11 Comments
Categories Dolomites, Ortisei, Restaurants, Trains, Travel, Val Gardena

Retreat on the Alpe di Siusi

15 Sep

15 September 2019.

Sometimes you just need to escape even while you are away. Rick Steves calls this a “vacation from your vacation.” While we aren’t really in need of further relaxation, we do like the atmosphere of the Alpe di Siusi and it has become a tradition for us to pass a couple of nights there and be able to hike in the mornings without worrying about an early bus from Ortisei or racing to beat the last gondola down at 17:30. It’s a looonnggg walk if you miss the last ride.

The gondola up to — and down from — the Alpe di Siusi. It only runs until 17:30 so don’t miss the last ride!

We are based for 2 1/2 weeks at the incredible Residence Astoria, our home in the Val Gardena the past four years. (See Training cats from 2016.) Taking only our backpacks with a change of clothing, we headed to Hotel Saltria for two nights, partaking of their half-pension plan and enjoying the convenience of being right there in the Alpe di Siusi for an early morning hike as recommended in our book, Walking in Italy’s Val Gardena. It’s good to travel light as this journey takes 3 buses and a gondola over the course of 90 minutes. Not fun with heavy luggage.

The Hotel Saltria is a larger property, yet retains an intimacy

Arriving at the hotel, we had time for an hour’s walk in the afternoon sun through mountain meadows, then a shower before dinner. No extended Italian eating hours here! Dinner is from 19:00-20:30 and almost all of the guests arrived in the first 15 minutes. (We did see one couple, clearly new to the concept and not Italian nor German, waltz in at 20:28 and they were seated and served. I think they got the dregs of what was left, though.)

A rifugio on the Panorama hike. The pond is used for fire-fighting (rare) and snow-making in ski season.

The next morning we were on the trail before 10:00 and took what may be our new favorite hike in the Alpe di Siusi, Panorama to Zallinger. (I’ll be writing that in detail for another post.) This was a long-ish one. Leaving the hotel a few minutes before 9:00, we did not return until 15:30 what with transportation, a coffee stop, a lunch break, and a 10 km walk. If we had tried to do this from Ortisei, we would have been gone from 8:00-18:00.

It was so nice to be catered to for breakfast and dinner. No shopping (which we do daily when we are in a self-catered situation), no cooking or food prep of any type. We just showed up and let the hotel staff take care of everything.

The dining room at Saltria. There were people of all ages: young couples with new babies, young couples alone, multi-generational groups, and people like us.

Breakfast was spread across a room bigger than our home living, dining, and kitchen areas combined! Set in a huge “E” shape, were baskets of various rolls and pastries, 8 types of preserves, 4 kinds of honey including one that was still in the comb, fruits, fruit salad, yoghurt, soft boiled eggs, a vegetable juicer, salad ingredients, 4 kinds of sliced meats, and at least 4 types of cheese. Beverages were on a separate buffet and the waitress made cappuccino, espresso, or “German” coffee to order.

This part of Italy is so Austrian that the first words out of anyone’s mouth are generally in German. In fact, this past week one of the German-language newspapers of the Südtirol expressed sadness on the 100th anniversary of the annexation by the Kingdom of Italy in 1919. Memories are long. So we were offered “German” coffee whereas in most of Italy we would have been asked if we wanted “American” coffee.

German is more prevalent in the Alpe di Siusi than it is even in the valley. A couple of our servers had trouble with Italian. One stumbled over the number 6 (sei in Italian) until I used the German word sechs. Some transactions became amusing mixtures: I told them I wanted my coffee senza milch. That high-school German comes back on occasion.

A sampling of the many vegetables available every night.

At the hotel, none of the food on the menus was described in English. Our evening meals — five courses if you wanted to eat that much — were described in Italian and German and the cuisine was decidedly fusion. Pasta or prosciutto and melon for a first course followed by roasted veal and a beetroot/potato puree. Or a cheese strudel as a starter with mountain lake fish on a bed of leeks with lardo. (Lardo is what it sounds like, though quite refined, a Tuscan specialty.) Like I said, fusion, or as our Italian friend would say, contaminated (contaminazione in Italian is a little pejorative, but serves as a false cognate in this case).

After our long day hike, we could have refreshed in the indoor-outdoor pool or worked on our skin cancer, but we retreated to a pre-dinner shower and coffee on the terrace overlooking the magnificent peaks. Just as the sun was setting, we headed to dinner, now greeted by a huge salad and vegetable buffet spread over the enormous “E” that once held breakfast. Perfectly sauteed artichokes, two types of asparagus, grilled peppers and eggplant, marinated mushrooms, more salad ingredients than the farmers’ market, and a cheeseboard.

My primo one night, pasta with smoked salmon. Sensibly small portion as there was more to come.

That was the first course. After that, there were soup, a primo, a secondo, and dessert, plus (more) cheese and fruit. We confined ourselves to three courses (no soup nor dessert) but indulged in a fine and reasonably-priced wine list.

My middle-of-the-night trip to the bagno was blessed with the lovely sight of the great mountain peaks bathed in moonlight. That alone was worth getting up for at midnight.

Travelers often complain about “touristy” areas and that so many places are over-crowded, or that they encounter too many Americans carrying Rick Steves’ guidebooks. If one wants to have an experience unlike any you are likely to have in North America, this is a fine place to add to an itinerary.