8 Best Places to Hike in Italy

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Italy has some of the most varied walking in Europe: limestone towers in the Dolomites, glaciers under Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa, wild valleys above Lake Maggiore, vineyard paths in Piedmont and cliff paths on the Ligurian coast. Here are eight places we would send any keen walker, from easy day walks to hut-to-hut treks. Late spring and early autumn are the best seasons for most of them; the high Alpine routes open once the snow clears, usually from late June.

1. The Dolomites

Plan your visit: Our Dolomites guide

The Dolomites, in the north-east, are pale limestone mountains of towers, needles and walls, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. At sunrise and sunset the rock often glows pink and orange, an effect the Ladin people call enrosadira.

There are walks for everyone: flower meadows below the Seceda ridge in Val Gardena, the circuit of the Tre Cime di Lavaredo, the climb to Lago di Limo in the Fanes-Senes-Braies Nature Park, or the Mondeval plateau above Passo Giau, where a Mesolithic hunter’s burial was found. For a long walk, the Alta Via 1 runs from Lago di Braies to Belluno over about ten days, sleeping in mountain huts. Many of the via ferratas, iron-cable climbing routes, follow paths built in the First World War.

Here is a video of five classic Dolomites hikes:

2. Mont Blanc (Monte Bianco)

Plan your visit: Mont Blanc on the Aosta Valley tourist board site (official)

Mont Blanc is the highest mountain in the Alps, and its Italian side rises straight above Courmayeur in the Aosta Valley. From town, the Skyway Monte Bianco cable car lifts you to the glaciers, and two long valleys, Val Ferret and Val Veny, give some of the best day walks in the Alps with the whole massif in view.

The Tour du Mont Blanc, one of Europe’s great treks, loops right round the mountain through Italy, Switzerland and France. Most people take about ten days to walk it, staying in huts and village inns, and Courmayeur is a natural place to start or break the walk.

3. Gran Paradiso National Park

Plan your visit: Gran Paradiso National Park (official site)

Gran Paradiso became Italy’s first national park in 1922. It began as a royal hunting reserve, and it is where the Alpine ibex was saved from extinction: you will very likely see ibex, chamois and marmots here.

The park spans the valleys of Cogne, Valsavarenche and Rhêmes on the Aosta Valley side and the Orco and Soana valleys in Piedmont. Easy walks include the flat path along the valley floor at Rhêmes-Notre-Dame and the Lillaz waterfalls near Cogne. Stronger walkers can climb to huts such as the Rifugio Vittorio Emanuele, the base for ascents of the Gran Paradiso itself.

4. Monte Rosa

Plan your visit: Gressoney and the Lys valley on the Aosta Valley tourist board site (official)

Monte Rosa is the great wall of ice on the border with Switzerland. Its highest summit, the Dufour Peak (4,634 metres, on the Swiss side), is the second-highest in the Alps, and its glaciers are among the largest in the range. On the Italian side, the Lys valley (Gressoney), Valsesia (Alagna) and Macugnaga, below the huge east face, are all good bases.

The Tour of Monte Rosa is a hut-to-hut trek of about nine days around the massif, crossing into Switzerland via Zermatt and returning past Cervinia, under the Matterhorn (Cervino). If you prefer day walks, the lifts above Gressoney and Alagna take you high quickly.

5. Val Grande National Park

Plan your visit: Val Grande National Park (official site)

Just north of Lake Maggiore lies the Val Grande, which the park describes as the largest wilderness area in Italy. Villages here were abandoned in the last century, and the old mule tracks now lead through beech and chestnut woods to empty stone hamlets. There are few marked paths and only simple unstaffed bivouacs, so it suits experienced walkers with a map.

For something gentler near the lake, walk up through the woods to the Sacro Monte di Ghiffa, one of Piedmont and Lombardy’s UNESCO-listed sacred mountains, for chapels and wide views over Lake Maggiore.

6. The Susa Valley

Plan your visit: Turismo Torino e Provincia (official tourist board)

West of Turin, the Susa Valley has been a route between Italy and France since Roman times, and its walks follow old military roads and pilgrim paths. High on a rock at the valley entrance stands the Sacra di San Michele, a medieval abbey you can walk up to. A branch of the Via Francigena pilgrim route comes down the valley, and the Rocciamelone (3,538 metres), with a statue of the Madonna on its summit, is a classic pilgrimage climb.

Turin’s other valleys are just as good and much quieter: the Chisone valley with the Val Troncea Natural Park, and the wild Lanzo valleys, where the lake of Malciaussia is the start of many mountain walks. The long-distance Grande Traversata delle Alpi (GTA) crosses them all.

7. The Langhe

Plan your visit: Langhe Monferrato Roero Tourism Board (official)

The Langhe, in southern Piedmont, is gentler walking: rolling hills of vineyards between hilltop villages and castles, part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its wine landscapes. This is the home of Barolo and Barbaresco wines and the white truffle of Alba.

Marked paths link the wine villages, and the Bar to Bar walk joins Barolo and Barbaresco over several days. Autumn, during the grape harvest and truffle season, is the best time to come, with a long lunch at the end of each day’s walk.

8. The Cinque Terre

Plan your visit: Cinque Terre National Park (official site: paths and closures)

On the Ligurian coast, the Cinque Terre are five villages linked by cliff paths through terraced vineyards, all inside a national park and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The coastal Sentiero Azzurro is the famous one, and higher paths through the vineyards and to the sanctuaries above each village are quieter.

Some sections need a Cinque Terre Card and some close after landslides or bad weather, so check the national park site before you set out. Our 3-day Cinque Terre itinerary shows how to fit the walks around the trains between villages.

The Trail That Changed How We Think About Hiking Here

Most visitors come for museums and restaurants, not mountain trails. That is their loss. Some of our best days have been on the old mule paths between villages, the pilgrim routes to hilltop sanctuaries, and the shepherd tracks of Abruzzo, where you are more likely to meet a flock of sheep than another walker.

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