Our guide to springtime in Dolomiti Paganella
Monday 11 March 2024

The season of blossom, lengthening days, warm sunshine, rainbows, and new adventures. Sounds, colours and perfumes that stimulate serotonin in your brain, a form of happiness to find in Paganella.

Out of slippers and into boots – the hiking paths await you

Come out of the winter torpor of thick jumpers and woolly socks and go for a wander along our trails.

Start with a low level walk through spruce forests, meadows full of Alpine buttercups and daisies, beside the turquoise water of Lake Molveno, below the melting snow on the summits of the Brenta Dolomites.

On more demanding hikes always check the weather forecast, and that the SAT hiking paths are open. Ask our Alpine guides for advice about the conditions along your route.

Some lift facilities are open at weekends and during long weekends for easy access to the mountains. Or alternatively you can reach our wilder side valleys with Jeep taxi services.
The Monte di Mezzocorona cable car is open every day to reach educational trails, via ferratas, the Skywalking panoramic platform, and the Tibetan footbridge suspended 920 metres above the valley.

Springtime for children

Low season for boys and girls means not having to wait their turn for swings and slides. For them we recommend:

• the Sarnacli Mountain Park sensory trail
  
• the Mondo di Sciury educational trail
  
• the Belpark Wildlife Park - open at weekends
• the Andalo horse-riding centre
• plenty of public playgrounds
  
• the local village libraries
• the Acquambiéz centre

From snow descents to trail descents

Sports fanatics just can't enjoy the “dolce far niente”, the sweetness of doing nothing, so to please you when the ski slopes close we open the bike park.

It starts on 20 April at Molveno, as well as weekends at Fai and Andalo, up until the opening event for the entire area, the Bike Opening from 31 May to 2 June with three days of music, food trucks, MTB testing, leading bike brands, and tours with enduro, downhill, and gravity guides.

If you are here on one of the (rare) days of closure of the lift facilities, you can visit The Cave centre to practice in the skill area and pump track, as well as the shared trails.

A spring of new foodies adventures

On your plate: radishes, dandelion greens, cabbage, and PDO white asparagus from Zambana.
In your glass the autumn fruits: apple cider, red Teroldego Rotaliano DOC and white Nosiola Trentino DOC wines, freshly bottled after the stages of fining and maturing.

You can wander through the Paganella villages and chat with the local residents as they till their vegetable gardens and gather the earliest harvests of the year.
Or you might like to cycle along the Giro del vino 50 among vineyards, old villages, streams, and sunny hilltops.

You could arrange wine tasting at a local cellar, or between 25 April and 1 May take part in From estate to estate, from wine to wine event, or the Festival of PDO white Asparagus of Zambana.

On the Paganella this season is both slow and busy at the same time. We renovate and rest, dream and discuss the future.
Here are our final tips for a spring break:

• set aside some time for appreciating the re-awakening of nature by relaxing on a blanket in the meadows, walking barefoot along the shores of Lake Molveno, watching the animals at the Wildlife Park as they awake from their winter hibernation;
• call up any restaurants or huts you would like to visit in advance. They are often family businesses and if they do not have bookings then they open mainly at weekends;
• check any public transport you want to use. Over this period our busses follow this timetable;
  
• check the weather forecast and take adequate clothing: hiking shoes and multiple layers. If rain is forecast, you can find some suggestions for bad weather days here.

Paganella, your spring break