How big is the Dolomiti Bellunesi National Park?

Just over 31,000 hectares, as the authority writes in its fact sheet. Sixteen thousand were already nature reserves before the park existed. The land runs from 412 to 2,565 metres above sea level.

What is the highest peak in the park?

The Schiara, 2,565 metres. The other main summits listed by the park are Sass de Mura (2,550 m), Talvéna (2,542 m), Castello di Moschesin (2,499 m), Pramper (2,409 m) and Paviòne (2,335 m).

Where do you enter the park?

Belluno and Feltre are the bases, both on the Padova-Belluno railway. From there you take one of the valleys: Val Canzoi, Val di Lamen, Valle di San Martino, Valle del Mis, Valle dell'Ardo, Cajada, Val del Grisol or Val Pramper. Inside the park only the Valle del Mis provincial road and the SS 203 Agordina run through.

Can you drive to the Piani Eterni?

No. You leave the car in Val Canzoi, at Lago della Stua, and climb on foot by mule track 802: a thousand metres of ascent, an outing the park itself calls demanding. Forest tracks are closed to traffic.

Can you mountain bike in the park?

Only on forest and pasture roads. Off those, biking on paths is forbidden, as is canyoning. Caving is allowed only for study purposes and must be agreed with the park.

Who may pick mushrooms in the park?

Only residents, property owners and people born in the park municipalities, and only outside the strict and general managed reserves. Veneto regional rules and the mountain community regulations apply.

Is the park part of the Dolomites UNESCO site?

Partly. Its mountains belong to system 3 of the World Heritage property, Pale di San Martino, San Lucano, Dolomiti Bellunesi and Vette Feltrine, which measures 31,666 hectares and is shared with the Paneveggio-Pale di San Martino park. Park boundaries and World Heritage boundaries are not the same.

Dolomiti Bellunesi National Park: valleys and access

This is the only national park in the Dolomites. It covers just over 31,000 hectares in the province of Belluno, between the Cismon valley to the west and the Piave to the east, with two arms reaching north: Val Pramper, in Val di Zoldo, and the lower Agordino. Fifteen municipalities share it.

It is not like the other Dolomite parks. There are no villages inside it, no ski lifts and no roads crossing it: only the Valle del Mis provincial road and the SS 203 Agordina run within the boundary, and forest tracks are closed to cars. The park runs from 412 metres on the valley floor to 2,565 on the Schiara, and that range holds broadleaf woods, beech forests, high pastures and bare rock.

Below you will find how the park is shaped, which valleys you enter from and where you leave the car, the rules that change from zone to zone, and what there actually is to see.

How it is shaped: mountains, forests, altitudes

The mountain groups, as the park authority lists them, are the Alpi Feltrine (Vette di Feltre, Cimonega, Pizzocco-Brendol-Agnelezze), the Pizzon-Feruch-Monti del Sole between the Mis and Cordevole valleys, the Schiara-Pelf and the Talvéna in the north-east, plus the Pramper and the Spiz di Mezzodì. The highest summit is the Schiara at 2,565 metres, followed by Sass de Mura (2,550 m), Talvéna (2,542 m), Castello di Moschesin (2,499 m), Pramper (2,409 m) and Paviòne (2,335 m).

Almost 60 per cent of the surface is forest: more than 18,000 hectares. Rocky ground covers over a quarter of the park, 8,700 hectares; meadows and pastures 12 per cent, 3,800 hectares; streams and lakes barely 1 per cent. Roads and settlements, the park writes, take up a negligible area.

The main torrents are the Cordévole, Mis, Caoràme, Stién, Falcìna, Ardo, Vescovà and Prampèra: they cut the valleys you now walk in through.

Erera, the Piani Eterni and Val Canzoi

The most unusual place in the park is the Erera - Piani Eterni karst plateau. Two different things sit side by side: the grassy basin of Erera, a flat fragment of alpine pasture with its stone huts, and the Piani Eterni themselves, a sheet of Grey Limestone worked by karst processes, with fissures, sinkholes and limestone pavement, covered by a tangle of mountain pine, willow and rhododendron. The park calls it inaccessible, and below it there are caves: the deepest reaches almost a thousand metres.

You get there from Val Canzoi, from Lago della Stua, on mule track 802. It is a demanding outing: a thousand metres of ascent, with no shortcut by car, because the forest tracks are closed to traffic.

Val Canzoi on its own makes an easier day. From the foothill road between Feltre and Belluno you climb to Soranzén and follow the valley to Preton, where there is a car park. From there a loop of 8.4 kilometres runs around Lago della Stua: four hours, hiking grade, recommended from March to October, with ten information panels along the way.

Where you enter and where you leave the car

The two gateways are Belluno and Feltre, less than a hundred kilometres from Venice and both on the Padova-Belluno railway. Dolomitibus serves all fifteen municipalities of the park. By car you arrive on the A27 motorway and then take one of the valleys: apart from the Valle del Mis provincial road and the SS 203 Agordina, there is no other road into the area.

The access valleys the park lists are Val Canzoi at Cesiomaggiore, Val di Lamen and Valle di San Martino above Feltre, Valle del Mis, Valle dell'Ardo above Belluno, Cajada and Val del Grisol at Longarone, and Val Pramper in Val di Zoldo. You drive the valley floor as far as the head car parks; after that you walk.

The information points sit at the gates: Pian d'Avena at Pedavena, Candaten at Sedico, Pian Falcina at Sospirolo, which also has a camper area and the Cadini del Brenton botanical garden. Belluno has the Dolomiti Bellunesi Natural History Museum, Cesiomaggiore the La Santina environmental education centre and the provincial ethnographic museum. Opening times and prices are not published on the park's page, so call ahead.

The rules: zones, bikes, mushrooms

The park plan divides the territory into four zones. Zone A is strict reserve and covers around 2,500 hectares: part of the Vette Feltrine up to the Piazza del Diavolo, the Caserin area in the Cimonega, Monte Brendol, the Piani Eterni and Monte Talvena. Zone B, general managed reserve, is most of the park. Zone C is the protection belt along the edges, where farming and forestry continue. Zone D, where people are most present, is limited to Passo Croce d'Aune, the settlements along Val Cordevole and a strip of Valle del Mis.

For walkers little changes: in the strict reserves and in type B2 reserves you must stay on existing paths, while in the rest of the park you move freely. The authority is explicit about three bans: no canyoning, no mountain biking off the forest and pasture roads, and caving only for study purposes and agreed with the park. Horse riding is allowed over much of the territory, apart from the most sensitive zones.

Mushrooms, medicinal herbs and wild berries may be picked only outside the reserves, and only by residents, property owners and people born in the park's municipalities, following Veneto regional rules. The park regulation, in force since 7 October 2021, covers the rest. Surveillance is in the hands of the Carabinieri, through the Feltre park unit and the stations at Pian d'Avena, Sospirolo, Longarone and Candaten. The rules shared by all the Dolomite parks, dogs and drones included, are in our guide to the parks.

What lives here: the bellflower, the raptors, the big animals returning

The flora is the reason the park exists: more than 1,400 vascular species, including rarities and plants of biogeographical interest. The symbol is Moretti's bellflower, endemic to the Dolomites, with showy violet flowers: it blooms after mid-July on damp rock faces above 1,000 to 1,200 metres.

Among the animals, all the alpine species are well represented, with hoofed mammals, birds of prey and grouse, and an invertebrate fauna rich in endemic species. The authority also reports the spontaneous return of a few lynx and bears: these are passing animals, not settled populations.

To see something without much effort, the park points to Val Canzoi: the pools beside the Caorame torrent and the S. Eustacchio ponds, in spring, with common toad, fire salamander, alpine newt and common frog, plus dipper, grey wagtail and roe deer in the meadows. Boots and an amphibian field guide, the page suggests. For the rest of the Dolomite wildlife there is our wildlife guide.

How it came about, and the UNESCO link

The park was established by ministerial decree on 20 April 1990; the authority that runs it was created on 12 July 1993 by presidential decree and is based in Feltre. Sixteen thousand of the 31,000 hectares were already eight nature reserves, part of the Council of Europe's biogenetic reserve network and managed by the Carabinieri Biodiversity Unit of Belluno. About half the territory is state-owned: the State had bought it twenty years before the park existed.

Park and World Heritage property do not coincide. System 3 of the Dolomites UNESCO site, Pale di San Martino, San Lucano, Dolomiti Bellunesi and Vette Feltrine, measures 31,666 hectares across Belluno and Trento and is the second largest: it includes the Vette Feltrine, the Cimonega with Erera and Brendol, the Monti del Sole, the Schiara and the Talvena with the Gusela del Vescovà and Monte Pizzocco, but also the Pale di San Martino and the Civetta, which are not in the park. The Foundation writes that most of that system lies within two protected areas: this park and the Paneveggio-Pale di San Martino.

Frequently asked questions

How big is the Dolomiti Bellunesi National Park?: Just over 31,000 hectares, as the authority writes in its fact sheet. Sixteen thousand were already nature reserves before the park existed. The land runs from 412 to 2,565 metres above sea level.
What is the highest peak in the park?: The Schiara, 2,565 metres. The other main summits listed by the park are Sass de Mura (2,550 m), Talvéna (2,542 m), Castello di Moschesin (2,499 m), Pramper (2,409 m) and Paviòne (2,335 m).
Where do you enter the park?: Belluno and Feltre are the bases, both on the Padova-Belluno railway. From there you take one of the valleys: Val Canzoi, Val di Lamen, Valle di San Martino, Valle del Mis, Valle dell'Ardo, Cajada, Val del Grisol or Val Pramper. Inside the park only the Valle del Mis provincial road and the SS 203 Agordina run through.
Can you drive to the Piani Eterni?: No. You leave the car in Val Canzoi, at Lago della Stua, and climb on foot by mule track 802: a thousand metres of ascent, an outing the park itself calls demanding. Forest tracks are closed to traffic.
Can you mountain bike in the park?: Only on forest and pasture roads. Off those, biking on paths is forbidden, as is canyoning. Caving is allowed only for study purposes and must be agreed with the park.
Who may pick mushrooms in the park?: Only residents, property owners and people born in the park municipalities, and only outside the strict and general managed reserves. Veneto regional rules and the mountain community regulations apply.
Is the park part of the Dolomites UNESCO site?: Partly. Its mountains belong to system 3 of the World Heritage property, Pale di San Martino, San Lucano, Dolomiti Bellunesi and Vette Feltrine, which measures 31,666 hectares and is shared with the Paneveggio-Pale di San Martino park. Park boundaries and World Heritage boundaries are not the same.