Dolomites mountains are so extremely popular. that even this year's joining of the prestigeous World Heritage List by UNESCO gone by almost unnoticed.
Although the important achievement, it looks like another label in the long string of numerous awards obtained by the mountains popular for holidays both during winter and summer.
The Dolomites can be roughly divided into two grups separated by the valley with the international road Trident - Innsbruck.
The smaller group called Dolomiti Brenta after the mountain Cima Brenta ( 3 150 m ) features famous ski resort Madonna di Campiglio, visited once by Austrian Emperors, and recently by the car king Michael Schumacher.
Tourist , who first came to Italy, quite often refer the second bigger group as 'the Dolomites' and so these mountains will be described in this article.
The confusion with the names goes back to the past, where part of Dolomites belonged to the Austrian Empire, almost all the places there are described by names in two languages,
and often the surprised visitor can see the third name written, or spoken in 'Ladin' the old local language, the mountaineers are proud about.
What is even worse, administratively the mountains belong to three Italian districts : Trentino, Alto Adige ( South Tyrol ) and Veneto.
There are about 50 small ski resorts , who recently joined together creating the ski group Dolomiti Superski divided into 12 ski areas.
The numbers are quite impressive here, one skipass allows to ski in the area featuring 1200 km of runs served by 450 lifts.
The queen district of the Dolomites is host of Winter Olympic Games, Cortina d'Ampezzo, the ski resort still popular among rich and famous,
unfortunately it is harder to spot a celebrity there as they switched from walking along the streets, to partying in more private properties.
The queen mountain of Dolomites is famous Marmolada, the highest mountain of Dolomites ( 3 342 m ) with a glacier, which used to allow the whole year round skiing, but with the recent weather changes
it is not possible now to ski in the summer there.
The lifts to Marmolada start from Passo Fedaia, easy accessible from ski resort Arabba.
Definitely the most popular among the ski lovers is Sella Ronda, the round mountain range, encircled by 25 km long chain of downhill runs
served by the lifts of Val Gardena, Alta Badia,Arabba and Val di Fassa.
Located at the end of Val di Fassa small town Moena gives the entrance to Tre Valli, and Val di Fiemme ski areas, the last one features famous Ski Center Latemar.
Another long valley is Val Gardena with three villages offering three different areas access to the challenging Sellaronda in Selva Valgardena, professional Fis competitions in S. Cristina, and picturesque slopes of Alpe di Siusi.
If you don't need the fast access to the crowds covered Sella Ronda , you should plan your vacation in one of the other ski resorts, that are bit separated from each other, and to join neighbouring ski area skiers can use the free skibus service, frequently running between the winter ski locations.
The remain ski resorts are : popular among British alpinists, stylish San Martino di Castrozza, picturesque Plan de Corones, Valle Isarco near Bressannone, Alta Pusteria with 200 km of routes for Cross contry skiing around Dobbiaco, and family oriented Civetta.
