Bolzano Travel Forum

We are flying into Munich July 6,2006 and will be staying at La residenza Parco dello Stelvio - near Bolzano - from July 8 through July 15. This is our first time to Europe and clueless! Is the rail system the best way to get around or should we rent a car? Does any one know how to get to La residenza Parco dello Stelvio? Should we take a train to Bolzano and a bus to the resort? What are the alternatives for transportation?
We want to use this resort as a home-base to travel to Florence and Venice - maybe Rome if time permits. July 15 through July 22 we have a place to stay in France - Club Le Bristol - Isola, which is also in the alps. So we have to get from Bolzano area to there. We fly out of Munich July 27, so we have 5 days without a place to stay as of yet. We plan to use those 5 days to go to Paris and other places in France of which we have not decided.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Gary

To begin with, unless there's another "Residenza Parco dello Stelvio", it's in Cogolo di Pejo which is not all that near Bolzano. You can take a train from Munich to Trento (one every 2 hours, e.g. 13.30, 15.30, which takes 4 1/2 hours and costs €61.80) and connect there for Val di Peio, changing at Male (note: pullman means coach, i.e. bus), see http://www.valdisole.net/ and there's a map on http://www.promoturpejo.it/comearrivare/comearrivare.htm
Not knowing what time your flight arrives, you will have to work out details for yourself using the excellent German railways website (note: you can also use this for trains in Italy and France), http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en.
To travel to Florence and Venice it would have been a heck of a lot more convenient to base yourself in a city with a mainline station and as you haven't, I think you may well find you have to hire a car. You may also have to use this to get from Trento to Isola 2000 (which is about 90 minutes drive from Nice) and from Isola/Nice to Paris and Paris to Munich - both of which I personally would prefer to fly having "done" Paris-Nice by night train. You can fly to Nice from e.g. Innsbruck, Munich, Milan Malpensa or Venice, see http://www.nice.aeroport.fr/vols/guide.asp, by train to Nice would take you 4h30 from Milan, 8h43 from Florence, 10h from Rome and from Nice to Paris 6h45. There is a sleeper train (Nachtzug) to Munich which leaves Paris Gare de l'Est around 22.00 (time varies depending on date and arrives in Munich at 8 or 9 the next day.

thanks for the information. We arrive in Munich 9.00. I thought Bolzano would be closer from Munich? I realize we will have to figure out our way to France and your reply was VERY helpful and I am astoniched at such a quick responce! Now, my daughter is trying to talk me into going from Munich to Salzburg, spending the night/next day there and then going to the resort. The place we are staying is a time share we traded for, so our hands are tied to use it. Same thing for France - we took what we could get just to go to Europe! We live in Orlando Florida, USA. Got great ticket prices for the flight over through LTU airlines. I was wondering if we would have to take a taxie seervice from a major city to get to Residenza Parco dello Stelvio. How far do you think it is from Bolzano? How conenient is it from this resort to train stations/busses?
Thanks so much for your assistance.
Gary

As I'm sure you know from a map, Salzburg is off your route - Bolzano lies directly South of Munich on the line that goes to [Garmish-Partenkirchen], Mittenwald, Innsbruck (almost 3 hours from Munich), Brennero, Bolzano, Verona, Bologna, Florence, Rome. For Salzburg, you would go East from Munich on the line going to Vienna, which takes about 2 hours e.g. 10.33 train would get you there at 12.27 (if this train still exists - I didn't check it on D-Bahn website); and have to come back to Innsbruck (1 hour) to be on the same line you would have taken direct to Bolzano.
There is a train from München Hbf. at 11.30 which gets to Trento at 16.02. For other options see http://www.bahn.de/-S:PtVORN:eSwvfdNNYv,V@dNNNOlM/p/view/international/englisch/international_guests.shtml
From a Polish website, the Val di Sole is about 70 km from Bolzano, so maybe 50 from Trento - here is another map: http://www.hotelstellaalpina.to/dovesiamo_ing.htm
If you specifically want to stop at Bolzano rather than Trento, I don't know whether this will work but here is the timetable from 12h00 for Bolzano-Trento (50 minutes, very frequent trains): http://orario.trenitalia.com/b2c/TimeTable
Here is the timetable for the little electric train from Trento to Male (1h30 mins) http://www.toptrento.com/viaggi/orariftm.ASP
And here is the timetable for the bus (pullman) from Male to Cogolo (1 hour) http://www.valdisole.net/php/come_arrivare/ing/p_Valle.inv.ing.htm
Total time by public transport Bolzano - Cogolo, 3h20; Trento-Cogolo, 2h30.
If you want to do it by taxi, you might do better to call one from Cogolo, they might have to deliver someone e.g. to Bolzano airport so that you wouldn't have to pay for a Bolzano/Trento taxi to get back after taking you up the mountain : http://www.valdisole.net/
Bon voyage and good luck!

Sorry, I note that that didn't copy the taxi part specifically of the Val di Sole site, but here is one of the taxi companies listed, which is based in Malè - none of them are actually in Cogolo where your timeshare is:
TAXITRAVEL
Type of vehicles:
- Autovettura Audi A6 Avant 5 seats
- Minibus Mercedes Sprinter 9 seats
Address:
Via Ugo Silvestri, 42/A
38027 MALE’ (TN)
Tel.: 0463 902302 - 348 3600682
Fax: 0463 901841
E-mail: taxitravel@tin.it
Website: www.paginegialle.it/taxitravel