Chief town of the Val Gardena and a very popular summer and winter resort, with good walks along the disused Chiusa-Plan railway paths. There are bus services in all directions and ski-lifts and cableways to all neighbouring heights. The cable-car to the Siusi Alps at 2,000 m, an altitude difference from Ortisei of 786 m, surmounts high pastures and meadows which are a naturalist’s paradise in summer, an immense blanket of virgin snows in winter. One of the Siusi ‘alps’ (not mountain but high meadow) is 50 square kilometres, the broadest contained expanse of pastureland in Europe.

The town has mountaineering and climbing schools. A dry bracing climate favours walks and excursions (sleigh-rides included). Ortisei is the town of the Ladins, a montagnard people who represent 5 per cent of the Dolomites’ population and speak a Romansch language all their own.