Winter roadtrip in the Alps.....Dolomites, Matterhorn, Venice, Como and more
In September of 2019 I got an email alert from scottscheapflights.com that tickets to Switzerland were on sale. I had just arrived back home from 2 months on the road traveling the western US but couldn’t pass up this opportunity. I called my buddy Jeff Bush and we jumped at the chance to travel to the Alps. For a whopping $330 we got round trip tickets from ATL to Zurich in Feb. 2020. Yes, we unknowingly timed this trip PERFECTLY, as Europe (especially northern Italy) closed the door behind us as Covid took over.
The places we were able to see and explore were breathtaking. One thing we noticed in planning for our trip is that most of these destinations are much more popular in the summer. There was very little info on winter options. We couldn’t find many blogs or vlogs for winter, we didn’t really know what was open and what wasn’t in winter. There’s tons of info out there for the Dolomites and other areas but not for winter. Well…..winter in the Alps is AMAZING. It may not be as accessible, it may be a little harder to get around but it was totally worth it. 100% recommend it.
Below are some of the places we explored. We are both full time creatives so the photos are a mix of mine and Jeffs, the video links below are each our own take on the trip.
With the benefit of some credit card travel points (thanks Capital One) and super cheap flights we were able to spend less than $3000 total on the whole trip and I only spent about $500 out of pocket. That’s including flights, car rental, gas, food, entry/ski passes, airbnb. Pretty good for a week in the mountains.
Evan’s travel film.
Jeff’s travel film.
After landing in Zurich we got our car and headed southeast. We made a quick stop in Lichtenstein and then through Innsbrook, Austria on the road to the Dolomites. After a full day on the road we made it our Airbnb in Cortina, Italy. Wow, this little mountain town was so picturesque. It really looked like some the puzzles my grandmother had when I was growing up. We got some great ideas from out Airbnb host on places to check out and got a good night’s sleep ready to get going the next morning.
First stop was Giau Pass which I had never heard of but after a few instagram searches realized it was a place I had seen so many times. The wind was crazy but the views were worth it. We hiked around for a few hours there and went back to town for some mediocre pizza and went BACK to Giau pass for some Milky Way action on a crystal clear Italian night.
Side note: I love trying McDonalds around the globe….the menus and experience is always different. Innsbrook McD’s may have the most epic view of any McD’s on the planet.
Giau Pass
My favorite part of the trip was actually one of our first stops.
Tre Cime de Lavaredo (aka Dre Zinnen).
Tre Cime is an iconic rock formation that stands tall above the surround mountains. We really couldn’t find a lot of info on the access during winter. We drove the icy mountain road up to where the plows had stopped next to Chalet Lago Antorno. We realized the road up the mountain to the peaks was only now open to snowmobiles, sleds, skiers and hikers. We took the side trail off the road and began our hiking ascent. Little did we know we’d hike around 12 miles with thousands of feet of elevation change. After trudging through some pretty deep snow we made it to the mountain refuge (where the road would normally end). The trail continued to snake around the base of the three peaks from there. The trail was a snowshoe/ski trail that was approx 10 inches wide hanging on the side of a massive snow bank. The trail was packed from traffic but one step off the side and you were knee deep in snow. It was surreal being in such a popular place and only passing a dozen or so people.
After hiking to the end of the trail, flying the drones and taking in some amazing views we started the trek back. As the sunset, some of the most beautiful colors i’ve seen began to glow off the fresh snow. We didn’t plan to hike that far, we didn’t plan to be out that long….so we hiking the last hour or so in the pitch black dark with dying phones for our only light. After a long day hiking we were relieved to see that our car had indeed been parked legally and that the Chalet restaurant was still OPEN! Jeff and I enjoyed a nice candle lit dinner before we headed back to Cortina.
Venice
After a couple of days in the Dolomites we decided on a whim to go to Venice. We were only about 2 hours away and had no set plans. Venice was never a place that i had really dreamed of visiting but we were THAT close we had to make it. After sleeping in the car outside the train station into Venice we got up early and hit the first train for the day. We got into town on a cold, rainy day and began to explore the city. A Eerie feeling was there, it was like something was happening but no one really knew what it was. It was carnival season but not much celebrating was going on. There was a police presence and the streets weren’t super crowded. We spent a few hours walking around the city and a little after noon we got back to the car and headed to our next destination, Lake Como.
Venice, Italy
Lake Como
Villa Balbianello
Little did we know we were literally right in the middle of the first major COVID outbreak in Europe. We had no clue covid was even a thing there, all we’d heard about was some virus in China. After leaving Venice, Jeff got a text from a friend asking if we were ok after all the news going on in Northern Italy. We were like “ what are you talking about?” We pulled out our phones and began to dig and discovered we were at ground zero. Upon our recent info we decided we needed to get out of Italy before the borders were closed. We drove along the lakeshore of Como through these tiny towns and villages where the road seemed to be narrower and narrower. So many little shops and stop off we would have loved to had made but we just didn’t want to get stuck in Italy. There was one place that I knew was on Lake Como but did not expect to get to see it. The sun was setting so we stopped at a pull off to get a few shots of the sunset over the lake. Just by chance we happened to have pulled off the road just across the lake from Villa Balbianello. This is the place where the wedding of Padme and Anakin was shot in Star Wars Episode II. We cut our visit to Lake Como super short and headed back towards Switzerland.
Como, Italy
Zermatt / Matterhorn
I never considered going skiing on the trip but that was one of Jeff’s main goals. He wanted to ski in Zermatt, under the Matterhorn. We decided to get lift tickets for a full day and get an Airbnb in Zermatt. I’ve always heard that Switzerland was super expensive and that Zermatt was even worse. We found the room in the airbnb for under $200/night and the lift tickets and ski rental was about $125 for each of us and was TOTALLY worth every penny. The slopes map was so massive and we could have skied for weeks and never hit the same trails. I had only skied in North Carolina and this puts it to SHAME. My only regret was not taking my Sony camera and only taking my go pro. I was worried I was going to ruin it….the views up on the mountain were spectacular and all I got were a few shots with the go pro. After the long day on the mountain I had one of the meals of the trip (a burger from downtown Zermatt). One cool aspect of Zermatt is there are no personal cars there. We had to park in a parking garage and take the train to Zermatt Station. From there we took the busses in town and all the lifts/trains/gondolas were based from town to slopes all over the mountain.
A day full of driving through small Swiss towns we were headed back to Zurich. We made some quick stops through Interlaken & Lucerne. One of the that shocked us the most was when we left our parking garage in Zermatt Station we just put Zurich in the GPS, we followed that route and got to a point on the mountain where the GPS said “exit and board train”. We were very confused by this cause we couldn’t leave our car there….. We had no clue there were trains that went through the mountain that you drove your car onto. Such a weird experience for two Alabama boys.
Interlaken, Switzerland
Lucerne, Switzerland
Overall it still blows my mind the things we were able to do and see. We are so blessed that we made this trip RIGHT before covid and the shut down of the world. Though it can be done now, things are so much different traveling.