- Where
- North-east Italy: Veneto, Trentino
and South Tyrol, Friuli - Coordinates
- 46.50° N
11.85° E (the Sella group) - Highest peak
- Marmolada, 3,343 m
- Area
- 15,942 km² (Wikipedia infobox)
- World Heritage
- Since 2009
- Ladin speakers
- About 41,100 (2006–2011 figures)
- Getting there
- Cortina: Treviso airport 138 km,
Venice Marco Polo 148 km - Advisory
- Italy Level 2
exercise increased caution (terrorism)
Pale grey towers going straight up from green meadows, cowbells below, and a wooden hut at the end of every path with soup on the stove. At sunset the rock went pink, then orange, then the colour of a cooling ember, and everyone on the terrace stopped talking. The people at the next table changed languages twice between the soup and the pudding, and I kept up with neither.
The short answer
The Dolomites are a mountain range in north-eastern Italy and part of the Southern Limestone Alps, Wikipedia records, spanning the regions of Veneto, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol and Friuli-Venezia Giulia across parts of seven provinces: Belluno, Vicenza, Verona, Trentino, South Tyrol, Udine and Pordenone. The article’s infobox gives an area of 15,942 square kilometres. The highest peak is the Marmolada, whose summit, Punta Penia, stands at 3,343 metres. The rock is mostly Triassic, sedimentary dolomite with volcanic rocks among it. UNESCO inscribed the range as a World Heritage Site on 26 June 2009, under its criteria for natural beauty and for geology, with a core area of 141,902.8 hectares.
Why it's worth knowing
A range named after a rock, and a rock named after a man. In 1791 the French mineralogist Déodat de Dolomieu described a rock he had found first in the buildings of old Rome and later in samples from the Tyrolean Alps, Wikipedia’s article on the mineral records; in March 1792 Nicolas-Théodore de Saussure named the mineral dolomite after him, and the mountains in turn took their name from the mineral. Before that they had been called the Monti Pallidi, the Pale Mountains, the range’s own article says, for the reddish to purple light that the carbonate rock reflects at sunset.
A language of the valleys. In the valleys round the Sella group, Val Gardena, Val Badia, the Fassa valley, Livinallongo and Cortina d’Ampezzo, people speak varieties of Ladin, Wikipedia records: about 41,100 native speakers, on figures from 2006 to 2011. Ladin is recognised as a minority language in 54 Italian municipalities, and has been partly official in South Tyrol since the autonomy statute of 1972. Its word for hello is hoi.
The field notes
A front line in the rock
In the First World War the front line between the Italian and Austro-Hungarian armies ran through the range, and both sides used mines extensively, Wikipedia records; there are open-air war museums at the Cinque Torri, Monte Piana and Mount Lagazuoi, and the vie ferrate, protected paths up the rock walls, began as routes made during the war. The Tre Cime di Lavaredo, three towers of 2,999, 2,973 and 2,857 metres, stood on the border between Italy and Austria-Hungary until 1919 and now stand on the border of the provinces of South Tyrol and Belluno; the front ran through them, and fortifications, trenches, tunnels and iron ladders remain. The highest, the Cima Grande, was first climbed on 21 August 1869 by Paul Grohmann with the guides Franz Innerkofler and Peter Salcher.
A meadow, and a glacier that broke
The Alpe di Siusi spreads over 52 square kilometres at between 1,680 and 2,350 metres, below the Sassolungo and the Sciliar, and Wikipedia calls it the largest high-elevation Alpine meadow in Europe; a Roman mule path leads up to it from Siusi. On the Marmolada, on the afternoon of 3 July 2022, the lower end of the glacier near Punta Rocca broke away as a serac about 80 metres wide and 25 high and fell several hundred metres onto a hiking trail on the north slope, killing eleven mountaineers and injuring eight, Wikipedia records. A temperature of about 10°C had been measured on the summit the day before; the article gives the extreme heat, a winter with less snow than usual, and meltwater under the ice as the causes later confirmed in scientific publications.
The Tre Cime di Lavaredo in evening light, August 2020.
Photograph: Alessio Furlan via Unsplash · Unsplash licence
The Alpe di Siusi, with the Sciliar, at sunset, June 2023.
Photograph: Tobias Reich via Unsplash · Unsplash licence
First World War trenches on Monte Piana, June 2012.
Photograph: Anais Goepner Melendez · Monte Piana War Trenches Dolomites Italy (4) · CC BY-SA 3.0 · cropped
- Walk from hut to hut, and have the soup at every one. The paths look as if they were laid out for exactly this.
- Be on a terrace facing the pale towers at sunset, and say nothing while they change colour.
- Carry the list up in an outside pocket. (Mine faded in the sun to the colour of the cliffs, and now it shows up properly at dusk, when it turns pink with the rest of them.)
- The meadows are somebody’s hay. Walk round the edges, and leave each gate the way you found it.
- Where the old trenches and tunnels run along the ridges, stop a while, and say very little.
A lump of pale dolomite. The rock that gave the range its name was described in 1791 by Déodat de Dolomieu, who found it first in the buildings of old Rome, and was named dolomite after him by Nicolas-Théodore de Saussure in March 1792, Wikipedia records; the mountains took their name from the mineral. It lies on every path in the range, is picked up, turned over in the hand, and put back where it was.
Tally, in the marginA pale, ordinary-looking lump, which I picked up, admired and put back. It was not until the walk down that I understood I had been holding a small piece of everything I had spent the week looking up at, and I turned round and said sorry to the path.
Getting there
How to get there. There is no single gateway to a range this size. For Cortina d’Ampezzo, at 1,224 metres in the province of Belluno, Wikipedia gives the nearest airports as Treviso, 138 kilometres away, and Venice Marco Polo, 148 kilometres, both about two and a quarter hours by road; the nearest station is Calalzo-Pieve di Cadore-Cortina, 35 kilometres south, linked to the town by the Cortina Link bus. The old railway from Calalzo to Dobbiaco closed in 1964. Cortina co-hosted the 2026 Winter Olympics with Milan.
When to go. The busiest roads and paths are those of July and August, when the summer booking rules below apply. Canada’s travel advice for Italy (updated 29 September 2026) warns that heavy rains, particularly in autumn and winter, can cause severe flooding and landslides, and that avalanches in the mountains can block roads and cut off resorts; it points to the AINEVA avalanche forecasts.
What to arrange ahead. Some of the most visited roads need a booking in summer: as of 20 October 2026, travel guides’ reports for the 2026 season (indexed; no official page could be read) say the toll road from Misurina up to the Rifugio Auronzo, below the Tre Cime, is reserved through an official portal, at €40 a car by one report, and that from 1 July to 15 September 2026 the road to Lake Braies was closed to general traffic from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. except with a booked permit, by bus, by bicycle or on foot. Mountain huts are busiest in high summer; book beds ahead.
Safety. The State Department’s advisory for Italy is Level 2, “Exercise Increased Caution”, dated 10 September 2026, because of terrorism; it names no region, and warns that petty crime is common in tourist places and on public transport, including trains. Canada says to exercise a high degree of caution, for the same reason, and that outdoor activities such as hiking and skiing can be dangerous; it recommends staying on marked trails. Local mayors close paths after rockfalls.
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Common questions
Where are the Dolomites?
The Dolomites are a mountain range in north-eastern Italy, part of the Southern Limestone Alps, spanning Veneto, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol and Friuli-Venezia Giulia across parts of seven provinces, from South Tyrol to Pordenone, Wikipedia records.
What is the highest mountain in the Dolomites?
The Marmolada is the highest mountain in the Dolomites, in north-eastern Italy; its summit, Punta Penia, stands at 3,343 metres, Wikipedia records.
Why are the Dolomites called the Dolomites?
The Dolomites, in north-eastern Italy, are named after the mineral dolomite, which Nicolas-Théodore de Saussure named in March 1792 after the French mineralogist Déodat de Dolomieu, who had described the rock in 1791, Wikipedia records. The range was earlier called the Monti Pallidi, the Pale Mountains.
When did the Dolomites become a World Heritage Site?
UNESCO inscribed the Dolomites, in north-eastern Italy, as a World Heritage Site on 26 June 2009, under its criteria for natural beauty and geology, with a core area of 141,902.8 hectares, Wikipedia records.
What language is spoken in the Dolomites?
Italian, and in the valleys round the Sella group in the Dolomites, Val Gardena, Val Badia, the Fassa valley, Livinallongo and Cortina d’Ampezzo, varieties of Ladin, which had about 41,100 native speakers on figures from 2006 to 2011, Wikipedia records.
What are the Tre Cime di Lavaredo?
The Tre Cime di Lavaredo are three rock towers in the Dolomites of north-eastern Italy, 2,999, 2,973 and 2,857 metres high, on the border of South Tyrol and Belluno; until 1919 they stood on the border between Italy and Austria-Hungary, and the First World War front ran through them, Wikipedia records.
What happened on the Marmolada in 2022?
On 3 July 2022 part of the glacier on the Marmolada, the highest mountain in the Dolomites, broke away near Punta Rocca and fell onto a hiking trail, killing eleven mountaineers and injuring eight, Wikipedia records; about 10°C had been measured on the summit the day before.
Do you need to book roads in the Dolomites in summer?
For some roads, yes: travel guides’ reports for 2026 say the toll road to the Rifugio Auronzo below the Tre Cime di Lavaredo is reserved through an official portal, and that the road to Lake Braies in South Tyrol was closed to general traffic from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. between 1 July and 15 September 2026 except with a booked permit.