 Poster: A snowHead
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Well, just got from an amazing two week trip to Europe. My wife and I spent five days in St. Anton (4 days riding) then four days (2 days riding) in Selva Val Gardena then finished it up with two days riding in Chamonix. For ease of future searching, I am splitting it up into three TR’s.
First off, we did not originally plan to go to St Anton, or even Austria. However, on January 31st I was seeing forecasts of huge dumpage in St Anton, and we cancelled our original hotel in Serre Chevelier and found a place in St Anton. Then, we did not plan on going to Selva Val Gardena either. However, on our last day in St Anton, we looked at the forecasts and made a last minute change. Selva Val Gardena had gotten something like 30cm two days before we were going to get there, and the forecast was for sunny skies throughout our stay. After having only a 3hr window of blue skies in Austria, we wanted some sunny, clear days so we can take in the scenery and enjoy the beauty.
So, the day before leaving St Anton I booked a room in Selva Val Gardena, then we headed that way!
Hotel: Garni Flamingo. This is a small bed and breakfast just outside the main center of Selva. It is run by a nice family, the head of which is/or was a ski instructor at the resort. They are very friendly and hospitable. The room comes with a covered parking spot and a large balcony with amazing views! The room is a little small, but it has a small table with two chairs and a nice sized bathroom. Everything is pretty modern and very clean. The breakfast is ok, nothing spectacular. They do make a good cappuccino though. It is a very short walk (maybe 200m) to the beginner drag lifts, which you can use to access one of the gondolas to connect to the Sella Ronda. It is about a 5 min walk, if that, to the main part of town, and maybe another one or two to the other gondola and ticket office. There are restaurants from a 1 min walk to a 10 min walk from the hotel. All in all we were very happy with our stay at the Garni Flamingo.
Selva: A charming town. There are lots of places to eat as well as après. It is surrounded by some of the most sheer cliffs and spectacular views of any place I have been. Everywhere you look it is beautiful! The scenery was one of the main reasons I chose Selva, and I was not disappointed one bit! It is very easy to walk around, and we never once drove the car.
Food: We ate at several places in town. While I am no connoisseur, I will try to describe as best I can.
Bellavista: We ate lunch here on the day we arrived. It is known for its seafood, but I didn’t feel like seafood. Basically, we were starving and it was the first place we saw so we went in. I had lasagna. It was pretty good. I’d order it again. Sorry, that’s about as descriptive as I get. The house wine was good and affordable. I can’t remember what my wife had. It wasn’t too pricey, but more expensive then some of the other places that we went for the food we had.
Hotel Freina: We read several good reviews on this place so decided to check it out for dinner. It is very nice looking, and I thought it was going to be more expensive than it was. We started off with the house wine (we really enjoyed all the house wines throughout our trip, and they are so cheap!) and a beef Carpaccio. I had never had Carpaccio before and we really enjoyed it. I had the prawns for dinner. They were good, but there weren’t a whole lot of them. My wife had some dumplings, but can’t remember the exact order. For dessert I had limoncello based on the waiter’s recommendation, and was glad I did. Alcohol and dessert in one? Yes, please. The service was great and it was less expensive than I thought it would be for as nice of a place it was and for the quality of food. It wasn’t cheap though, but a good place for a special dinner.
Pizzeria Sal Feur: We only stopped in here since it is about 4 places down from the hotel. I’m glad we did though. The pizzas were great, and it was affordable. House wine: cheap and good. They even let us buy a bottle of wine to take back to our room!
Rino: This place is right on the main street. It was recommended by the owners of the Flamingo, and we are really glad he recommended it! We ended up going back and ate there two nights in a row. It’s small and quaint, and has amazing food for a great value. As usual, good affordable house wine. I had a pizza with brie and speck, and it was wonderful. My wife had the mussel “soup” as well as spaghetti carbonara. The mussel “soup” wasn’t really a soup, but a giant bowl of mussels soaking in a broth. These were some of the best if not for sure the best mussels we had ever had. They were very flavorful without being overpowering. The mussels were a main reason we went back a second night so we could each order our own! Highly recommend trying this place out.
Sofia Hut: On mountain dining. It was very good. Our guide took us here, and it’s his favorite place on mountain. I think that says it all.
The mountain/riding: Our first day in Selva we decided to get a guide. There is so much to the whole Superski Dolomiti that we had no idea where to start. It had snowed around 30cm about two days before our arrival, and was bluebird for our stay.
We had Christof through Catores as our guide. He was great, and did his best to find us some powder even though there wasn’t a whole lot of fresh snow to be found. I really wish we had brought our splitboards or rented some snowshoes, since he kept showing us amazing terrain that we could have accessed with skins or snowshoes. But, he was a great guide, and he really helped us plan our next day of riding and gave us some tips. One funny thing, at lunch at the Hut Sophia, a previous client of his ran into him while we were eating. After they exchanged a short conversation, the previous client went on his way. Five minutes later, three glasses of some real expensive wine (a few locals who were sharing our table with us talked about the brand of wine he ordered for around 10 minutes and all agreed it was a fantastic wine) and a platter of speck were on our table, courtesy of the previous client! Well we ate great that lunch!
The other day we decided to do the Sella Ronda tour, and that was amazing! We pretty much just followed the route and took hundreds of pictures! Wow! The views were just amazing! Only tonly deviation we did to the orange Sella Ronda route was that we went up the Sella Passo? tram to the top of the Sella. The views were even more amazing up there! I tried to convice my wife to ride one of the couloirs that were far lookers right of the tram, but she was having none of that. So, we ended up going down the main wide route that was basically a piste (heavily tracked out and moguls). It was cool to ride right next to the cliffs though.
It seems like there is a lot of beginner and intermediate or like extreme couloirs, with not a whole lot of terrain for advanced. However, I could be wrong since I only rode two days there and there is soo much area.
Apres: I only add this in because we had such a great time après at LuisKeller bar. There is a lot of German pop music, some American. People were getting drunk, dancing, singing, it was so much fun. We went there every day and had a blast. We even started to learn some of the German songs that everyone else knew. Oh, and they have a 2 beer for 5 euro après special. They also have a liter of beer for 10 euro, non happy hour. I highly recommend stopping by for après.
Long story short: We loved the Dolomites! Great food, great views, decent riding.
The Passo Sella(?) tram:
View from the top of the Passo Sella (?) tram station:
Where we came down for the tram:
One of the on mountain huts:
In town:
Sella Ronda:
Lunch on the mountain:
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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a2thak, Great trip report and photos, Val Gardena and the Dolomites are a great area with fantastic scenery! 
By the way, the cable car (aerial tram in US parlance) that you weren't sure of its name and referred to it as Passo Sella (?) is actually called the Sass Pordoi, see http://www.fassaski.com/en/sasspordoi/index.htm
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Thanks for the report - Super Photos !!
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Thanks for the great report and pictures. Agree about the lovely house wine in Selva, my favourite red was in our hotel bar in the Flora hotel. And the Luiskeller is a great apres spot. On our last night in there a very friendly and very drunk Italian man decided to befriend us and buy us drinks for the remainder of the night. But he totally refused to accept a drink from us in return. Imagine a stranger doing that back home in a British pub???
Oh and if you have any more photos posted on somewhere like photobucket can you let us have the link please?
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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a2thak, nice report and great photos 
May well have add a stay in Selva to the ever growing list!
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wonderful trip report a2thak, esp like your to the point food reviews
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Great trip report! Looking to book now. Did you notice any lodging in the mountain huts refugio's in the area?
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Is it me missing something, or are we still waiting for the Austrian and French legs of this TR? I'd like to read them. Super photos of the Dolomites. And the dumplings.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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pam w,
He did do that, but posted them elsewhere...I'll post the link if I can find TR back.
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pam w,
But how about that Lasagne and matzo ball soup? yummmmmmmmm! I'm on the look out for alternatives to France for mid term 2014, on a budget, as per usual... if my budget were able to expand, I found this place, thought you might appreciate this one pam w, http://www.colraiser.com/eng/index.htm
just some holiday candy special for you ... but thinking, two adults 250 per day Half Board...plus two kids with a discount, it is reasonable, just a stretch for someone who budgets 500 EUR per person pwer week all-in.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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HeidiAmsterdam, thanks very much; I was being dim.
The home page picture of the Colraiser doesn't appeal to me at all - far too big and busy. I'd much prefer your hideaway in Megeve!
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You know it makes sense.
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pam w,
Yeah... that Megeve place is a gem!
I was loving the gastronomy and the spa at 2000 meters though
Sadly, I may skip that in 2014 as our holiday collides with Paris and UK half term, and with Megeve being so accessible to Paris, and being famous, I'm thinking it will be crowded, queues and crowded pistes...and that my girls are to the point they want to ski black runs 75% of the day..
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Interesting TR and wonderful photos. I was particularly interested as we considered going to Selva this year, but shelved the idea as:
1. (From Google Streetmap) the town looked utterly charmless and strung out along a reasonably busy road. (Unless Selva is v different to VG it looks as if I was completely wrong!)
2. We wanted to go to Italy, not Austria/Germany that just happens to be inside the Italian border. (Not sure if I was right or wrong on this score)
3. I also seem to remember thinking that the skiing was not too well linked up and you pretty much had to decide whether to ski on one mountain or the other mountain. (Was I wrong on this one?)
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Poster: A snowHead
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| foxtrotzulu wrote: |
Interesting TR and wonderful photos. I was particularly interested as we considered going to Selva this year, but shelved the idea as:
1. (From Google Streetmap) the town looked utterly charmless and strung out along a reasonably busy road. (Unless Selva is v different to VG it looks as if I was completely wrong!)
2. We wanted to go to Italy, not Austria/Germany that just happens to be inside the Italian border. (Not sure if I was right or wrong on this score)
3. I also seem to remember thinking that the skiing was not too well linked up and you pretty much had to decide whether to ski on one mountain or the other mountain. (Was I wrong on this one?) |
1. Yes Selva is strung out along a road that can get busy in the mornings and afternoons but its not that charmless. Once off the main road in the village the streets are much quieter
2. Well technically Selva is in Italy and yes it may have more of a Austrian/German feel to it than an Italian one. But the scenery and food more than make up for this in my opinion
3. Well the skiing is actually on three main mountains accessed by the main gondolas up to Ciampinoi, Dantercepies and Col Raiser. Getting from the Ciampinoi side to the Col Raiser side is relatively easy as you ski down to the connecting underground train shuttle which takes you to the base of the Col Raiser gondola. This is not really a big hardship. Also from the Ciampanio side you just have to cross the main road in Selva to a short chairlift and then ski down to the gondola to take you up to the Dantercepies mountain. Again not really that much of an issue to do
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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foxtrotzulu, I've not stayed in Selva itself, bit have spent a few days skiing in the area. It is pretty easy to get about - where you have to cross the valley you can see the next lift just ahead. No issues going to different areas on the same day, though the signage at the top of Ciampanoi could be improved.
If you want to go ski in Selva but prefer a more Italian village, have a look at Canazei or Corvara - you can still be in Val Gardena by mid morning from either of these places.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Thanks, we actually ended up in Madoona di Campiglio which worked out very well?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyone able to recommend cheap accommodation in any of the above? Would be interested in ski in (prob irrelevant in the dolomites due to the way things are spread out) some kind of mini wellness - Jacuzzi, sauna and good food, if half board was a runner?
Is cheap compatible with any of the above?
Also is this the same broader ski area as cortina?
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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8611, Mountain Sun have some good value accommodation, but I don't know if they have any with wellness facilities – the one in San Cassiano doesn't, but is ski in/out. Sorry, that's all I know.
It's worth mentioning that other costs are fairly low (depending on what you're used to) in the Dolomites – eating out, drinks, ski hire, lessons etc. so you could offset savings for your accommodation.
Cortina is on the same ski pass and I think it is accessible by bus or from Passo Falzarego (top of the Hidden Valley). You probably want to be on the Arabba/Corvara/San Cassiano side of the Sella Ronda to get there though.
Here is an overview map which gives you some idea of the proximity: http://www.eggental.com/uploads/pics/dolomitisuperski_06.jpg
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Thanks scarlet, wow it really is a wide area isn't it? I was actually in dolomites before, stayed in San Vito, wouldn't know where to start or ski in if I went back now, thinking of somewhere for a 4 day break and some of my companions are pushing for italy for a change.
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8611,
I've been looking into the same for us. I"ve pretty much come to the conclusion, that Selva will be crowded during half terms, and too much blue cruising runs for us. As a location, I would choose Arabba as you can go three different and distinct direction from it's little valley. I don't know what you call cheap, but for us and our budget, with basically the same requirements. We can ski anything and everything.
And I came up with Hotel Tyrolia, in Malga Ciapela, the back side of Arabba. 440 EUR per week per adult (discounted for kids) half board. Wellness, Sauna, and swimming pool, at the bottom of the rope tow. Across the street the gondola to Marmolada (a major plus). Getting to Sella Ronda is probably going to take 30 minutes of a combi of uplifting and skiing. But I'm discovering other itineraries to do from there to break it up a bit.
Were my budget a bit broader, you'd likely find me at the Hotel Portavescovo, were I want to be on the slopes and the center of it all in Selva Hotel Club Sochers (no swimming pool).
FWIW.
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Thanks for review, going to Selva in March 2014 
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