Madonna di Campiglio and the surroundings

Well, I've always wanted to see from closer  the Brenta mountains. I feel a bit guilty about living in Trentino and favouring the South Tirol. I know some places in the Brenta mountains are famous for the 'vie ferrate' ("the iron path equipped with fixed cables, stemples, ladders and bridges) and I'm sure they must be very beautiful but I couldn't take my kids there, not yet.

In our search of the splendid view of the Brenta mountains we went to explore the surroundings of Madonna di Campiglio, famous place but, as it turned out, not my cup of tea. Nevertheless, I feel that I should write something about it.

We wanted to have a walk from San Antonio to the lake of Valagola, we had found the itinerary on the website  http://www.valrendena.net/escursioni/dolomitidibrenta/body.htm   (a website in Italian, German and English) and wanted to use the one from the Malga of Bregn da l'Ors. I was silly enough not to print out other options. Anyway, we couldn't find the malga and because we were hungry we went to Madonna di Campiglio to look for something to eat there. It almost looked like a ghost town, with very few people on the  streets and hardly any shops or restaurants open (it was Saturday). We managed to find a restaurant/pizzeria called Le Roi that was open. The prices were a bit higher maybe because it's Madonna di Campiglio after all and the food was a bit too oily for my taste. We took tagliatelle with wild porcini mushrooms and roast potatoes with veal and artichokes. After lunch we decided to leave Madonna di Campiglio because it was very cold and windy there. There were some cable cars working but because the visibility wasn't good and it was cold we didn't want to go up the mountain.

On the way back home to Trento we stopped at the cable car station of Groste at the Campo Carlo Magno. We later found out that we should have gone there in the morning, took the cable car up the mountain and walked from there to various malghe. The following website is unfortunately only in Italian. It gives the possible list of walks. http://www.funiviecampiglio.it/ita/estate/groste.asp

You start at 1600 m and you can go up to 2085 m or continue on the second leg up to 2485m.

Here are some walks that I had translated for you.

Walk 1.

If you choose to get off half way at Stazione Intermedia Groste, follow signs for Malga Vagliana, continue to Malga Vaglianella, then Malga Mondifra, back to the cable car station Groste. It's an easy descent and it should take about 2-2 hour 30 mins.

Walk 2.

Get off half way at Stazione Intermedia Groste, follow signs for Lago Spianale, then back to the cable car station Groste. An easy walk that takes about 1 hour 30 mins.

Walks if you want to get off at 2485m, follow the strada forestale/forest road down to the cable car station. An easy walk that takes about 2-4 hours.

Another option would be to walk down to Madonna di Campiglio. It's a medium difficulty walk that takes 3.30-4 hours. Follow signs for Rifugio Tuckett , then rifugio Casinei, rifugio Vallesinellai/ sentiero dell'Orso. From rifugio Vallesinella you can take a bus back to Madonna di Campiglio.

What we did, we parked down near the station (you have to pay 3 Euros for the whole day, we didn't pay because we were there in the afternoon). Then we walked towards one Malga (I don't remember the name...sorry!), passing the pastures with cows. A lovely Alpine view.

All in all, perhaps we'll come back there next year, although for us from Trento it's much quicker to get to the South Tirol.

Every now and then the sky would clear and we would get the glimpse of the majestic mountains.

The Malga was closed.

The path was signposted, although the signs weren't very reliable.

Mountain views near the Malga Mondifra'.