Sappada: fun for your children and cross-country skiing, ice climbing and hiking for you

Discover in Sappada the charm of cross-country skiing and Nevelandia, the entertaining winter playground for your children, ice climbing, hikes in the woods, sport fishing, horse riding and ancient traditions like the Carnival.

Winter holidays in Sappada

In winter Sappada is perfect for skiing: you have at your disposal 20 km ski runs of various difficulty levels, school camps, technical trails and a modern snowboard park. Sappada is the home of Nordic skiing, with more than 52 km tracks that are part of the Dolomiti Nordic Ski resort. On these tracks train great Olympic champions like Pietro Piller Cottrer and Silvio Fauner, both born in Sappada. While you enjoy the many ski runs and trails...your children have even more fun than you thanks to Nevelandia, that with an area of 70.000 mq is the largest winter playground in the north east of Italy.
If one day you don't feel like skiing you can choose among a horse-drawn sleight ride, ice climbing on the Acquatona waterfalls, snow tubing, snowshoeing and dog sledding.

Sappada offers the short and yet rewarding ascento to Mount Lastroni with the Olbe lift facilities or the ski mountaineering itinerary on the Mulo Pass. Crossing the Sèsis Pas, which has to be reached on foot, you can descend trough Val Fleòns valley and arrive in Forni Avoltri, in Carnia.

Summer holidays in Sappada

In summer Sappada is perfect for easy hikes through lush green meadows and along paths carved out of the rocks, leading to the many mountain refuges that can be reached also with the ski lifts, open in every season. You can practice sport fishing in the Ziegelhutte pool, walk to the Acquatona precipice or to the waterfalls of the Mühlbach stream, where you can also practice canyoning, or to the foot of Mount Peralba, where you find the source of the Piave River. Many paths are perfect for horse riding and mountain biking, and there are many sport facilities where you can practice football, tennis, mini golf, bocce and swimming. In summer children have fun too, thanks to the trampolines, mini golf courses and summer tubing dry-slopes of Nevelandia Summer.

The unique character of Sappada: origins, traditions, Carnival

The valley of Sappada stretches in a basin surrounded by wonderful mountains like Mount Peralba. It lies in a peculiar position, bordering the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, the Veneto region and Austria, from which the people of this area took their history and culture. Sappada or Plodn is in fact an etnic and linguistic island and the language spoken is the Bavarian-Tyrolean dialect. Sappada is divided in 15 hamlets: Lerpa, Granvilla, Palù, Pill, Bach, Mühlbach, Cottern, Hoffe, Fontana, Kratten, Soravia, Ecche, Puiche, Cretta and Cima Sappada. These hamlets maintained during time their ancient traditions, that can be seen in the architecture of the houses of Sappada Vecchia and Cima Sappada, almost entirely built from wood.

Carnival of Sappada

Tradition shows also in the many celebrations, especially in the Carnival, with its stern Rollate, a traditional character wearing a heavy sheepskin coat and a wide hood, and its carved masks hiding the faces of the partakers, real masterpieces of local craftsmanship.

Sappada: what to see

Historical buildings and churches worth visiting are the Regina Pacis sanctuary, St. Oswald's church, the Museum of the Great War in Mühlbach, the Ethnographic Museum in Bach and the House Museum in Cretta.

The cuisine of Sappada

A characteristic of the cuisine of Sappada is its use of melted butter as seasoning, and of poppy-seeds in main dishes like the gepichta kropfn or in sweets like the magn kropfn. Typical are also their smoked salami and cheeses. Some of the most distinctive dishes of this area are the saurn schotte, a sour ricotta cheese flavored with aromatic herbs, and a game meat dish served with wild berries jam.