The 40-Euro Toll Road to Tre Cime: A Nine-Day Dolomites Itinerary - Example Timeline | Boromlia
Dolomites itinerary for nine days in July 2026, planned around five separate booking systems that each open at a different hour.
Forty Euros to Drive Six Kilometres
The toll road up to the Tre Cime is about 6 km long. It starts just past Lago d'Antorno and ends at the Rifugio Auronzo car park at 2,333 m. In 2026 a car costs 40 euros and the ticket is good for twelve hours starting at the slot you pick. Residents of the comune of Auronzo di Cadore pay 5 euros. Motorbikes are 26, campers 60, a coach under thirty seats is 80. Alpine and hiking guides buy a seasonal pass for 150. Since 2025 you cannot simply turn up and pay at the barrier. Access is by online reservation only, on a calendar that shows the remaining slots in real time.
The Number Plate Can Wait Until Midnight
You can add the registration up to 23:59 the day before. We had no hire car details in March, so we booked the slot first and typed the plate in from a car park in Bolzano.
Two More Barriers, Two More Websites
Two of the places we wanted were also gated, on different systems and different clocks. The Braies valley road is shut to through traffic between 09:00 and 16:00 daily, 1 July until 15 September 2026, and inside that window a car needs a parking reservation booked through pragsparking.com. The Alpe di Siusi road closes every day between 09:00 and 17:00 to anyone who is not a resident or booked into a hotel up on the plateau. Reports in the spring said the Compatsch P2 car park would move to advance booking too, with a six day window. We booked what we could and left the rest to luck.
Into Ortisei on the SS242
We flew into Verona, drove up through Bolzano and Ponte Gardena, and turned onto the SS242 into Val Gardena. Ortisei has a pedestrian centre, so the apartment came with a permit that let us drive in and unload before taking the car back out of the centre. The one useful thing our host told us on arrival: the Dolomiti SuperSummer card is not accepted on either of the two Seceda cable cars, nor on the Fermeda chairlift. Seceda Cableways say so in bold at the top of their own website. We had been about to buy one.
Seventy-Four Euros for the Most Photographed Ridge in the Alps
Two lifts get you up: a small gondola to Furnes, then a cable car on to Seceda. The adult return on the through ticket is 74 euros. A one way, either direction, is 49. Children under eight travel free with a paying adult and juniors to sixteen pay half. Dogs and bikes are 7 each. What you are paying for is a tilted meadow that falls away in front of the Odle. Seceda Cableways will tell you, without much modesty, that the view turned up as a backdrop at Apple's developer conference in 2017 behind a new iMac. The lifts run 22 May until 2 November, 08:30 to 18:00.
Down the Fermeda Chairlift Because My Knee Said So
The plan was to walk down to Ortisei. Twenty minutes in my knee disagreed, so we took the Fermeda chairlift, which is priced separately at 28 euros one way and only runs 20 June until 20 September, 09:30 to 16:30.
Through the Barrier at 08:20
The road up to the Alpe di Siusi is closed to private cars every day between 09:00 and 17:00, summer and winter alike. Before nine and after five it opens as far as Compatsch and no further. Residents and anyone booked into a hotel on the plateau are exempt, which is why you will pass cars driving up at noon and feel personally cheated. We went up at 08:20 and parked at Compatsch. Overnight parking is banned between 23:00 and 06:00 and the barriers enforce it themselves. The alternative is the Siusi cable car, 4.4 km and 800 vertical metres in fifteen minutes, listed at 30 euros return for an adult. I did not write down what we actually paid to park.
Europe's Largest High Alpine Meadow, and a Bench
We walked out towards Saltria and then sat on a bench for an hour looking at the Sassolungo. Nothing happened. It was the best hour of the week and there is nothing else to report about it.
The Coffin Lift
At Passo Sella there is a two-person gondola that everyone calls the coffin lift, because that is exactly what the cabins look like standing on end. It carries you to the Toni Demetz hut at 2,685 m, in the notch between the Sassolungo and the Sasso Piatto. Summer 2026 prices: 30 euros one way, 45 return, juniors 21 and 31.50, dogs 5. It runs 08:15 to 17:00. There is no door and no seat. You step in while the cabin is still moving and an attendant swings a bar shut behind you. My partner rode it with both eyes closed and has not mentioned it since.
Three Passes Before Lunch
Passo Gardena first, then down into Corvara, over Campolongo and along the Great Dolomites Road to Falzarego. Roughly two hours of driving if nobody stops, and everybody stops. The car park at the Lagazuoi cable car station on the pass was listed as free for the whole 2026 summer season. After four days of paying for every surface we stood on, it felt like a clerical error somewhere.
A Hole in the Mountain at Falzarego
The Lagazuoi cable car runs every fifteen minutes, first car up at 09:00, last one up at 16:40, last one down at 17:00. The 2026 summer season is 6 June until 18 October. Paying by card at the window gets you five per cent off and lets you skip the queue, which is the first time I have watched a lift company actively bribe people away from cash. The top of the mountain is an open-air museum of Great War positions, looked after by a committee named for the Cengia Martini ledge, with an app that walks you round it. Tunnels were driven straight into the rock here. You can walk down through them if you have a torch and a helmet.
A Bed on the Ridge and a Paper Bag to Sleep In
Every hut in the Dolomites wants you inside a liner, either your own or a disposable one bought at the desk for around three and a half euros. Nobody sleeps directly in hut bedding. We had brought ours, which after a week of paying for things we had not expected felt like a small win. Half board in a dormitory runs somewhere around 50 to 90 euros a head depending on the hut and whether you hold a CAI card, and a deposit of about 20 euros a person is normal at booking. We booked in April and the private rooms had already gone.
Down the Ridge, and Two Hours Behind
We came down the ridge path a good deal slower than the sign suggested and reached the pass at 12:40, roughly two hours behind the plan. Nobody minded except the person holding the plan, who was me.
Cinque Torri, and a War Fought Above the Treeline
A chairlift climbs from Baita Bai de Dones, just off the SS48, up to the Rifugio Scoiattoli in a few minutes. In 2026 it runs 6 June until 11 October, 09:00 to 17:00, and a return was around 27.50 euros, varying by month, with the same five per cent card discount. Above the lift there is a restored Italian trench system, free and open to walk through, with dugouts and a command post cut into the slope. The five towers themselves are a climbers' playground; we counted four ropes working on them while we ate.
06:40 at the Toll Booth
The barrier sits past Lago d'Antorno and the road climbs about 6 km to the Rifugio Auronzo at 2,333 m. Our slot was the first of the day. The attendant read the plate and the gate went up. That was the whole transaction; the 40 euros had left our account back in March. The ticket runs twelve hours starting at your entry time, and it also expires the moment you drive out, so there is no dropping back down for lunch and coming up again. Access can be suspended in bad weather. We had none, which after a week of Dolomite afternoon cloud was pure luck.
Anticlockwise, Which Is the Wrong Way
The loop around the Tre Cime is about 10 km with roughly 350 to 400 m of climbing, and the signs give three to three and a half hours. Everyone we asked said walk it anticlockwise, so that the north faces open up ahead of you as you come round to the Rifugio Locatelli at 2,405 m. We went clockwise by accident, following a group who turned out to be heading somewhere else entirely. It meant we met the whole day's traffic head on for two hours and had the north faces at our backs. Four and a half hours with stops.
Lago d'Antorno on the Way Down
We stopped at Lago d'Antorno because it was there and we had legs like wet rope. Twenty minutes, one coffee, no photographs worth keeping.
07:15 at Braies, Before the Gate Comes Down
The valley road is regulated between 09:00 and 16:00 daily, 1 July until 15 September 2026, and inside that window a car needs a booked parking slot. Outside those hours you drive in and pay the machine like anywhere else. Bus 442 runs up from the stations at Villabassa and Monguelfo if you would rather not deal with any of it. We were parked at 07:15. The first hour at that lake is genuinely quiet, and the boathouse does not open until 08:00 in high summer, so the water stays flat and empty for a while.
The Boat, and Two Prices for It
They are wooden rowing boats and they are the only thing allowed on the water. No kayaks, no paddleboards, no boat of your own, and no drone anywhere in the valley, because the lake sits inside the Fanes-Sennes-Braies nature park. Five people to a boat, children included. Here is where I have to be honest with you. The boathouse's own website lists a private boat at 55 euros for 45 minutes on its booking cards and 50 euros in its own FAQ further down the same page; the shared ride shows as 20 euros a head in one place and 15 in the other. I did not keep the receipt and I cannot tell you which figure we paid. They also warn that the queue can reach two hours in high season, and neither of those two tickets can be bought online.
San Giovanni in Ranui Is Shut
The small church at Ranui, the one with the onion dome and the Odle standing behind it, sits on private land. In 2022 the owners put in a turnstile and charged a few euros to stand in the meadow and photograph it. That system was scrapped for 2026. The meadow is now closed to the general public, the church is not open to visitors, and access is reserved for guests of the owners' hotel. We had not checked, because it was the one thing on the whole list that had never needed booking. We stood on the road with everybody else and looked at it over a fence.
Up the Pedestrian Road to Santa Maddalena
Santa Maddalena is still open. The last stretch of road to the church and the panoramic road out to the viewpoint are both closed to private cars, so you park below and walk it. That improves nobody's mood at 18:00 on a hot day, but it does keep the lane clear. No new access system had come in for Santa Maddalena by the summer we went. Talk in the spring about cars and coaches being banned from the valley altogether turned out to be wrong. That was the ninth day. We drove back to Verona in the morning. Prices here come from the operators' own 2026 pages where they publish them, and from third-party guides where they do not: the comune of Auronzo for the toll, Seceda Cableways, Sassolungo, Lagazuoi Spa, the Braies boathouse, the Alpe di Siusi tourist board. Photographs are freely licensed Commons images standing in until I sort out ours.