Val di Funes is a secluded side valley in South Tyrol, the kind you discover almost by chance and then never forget. Above the meadows and farmsteads of San Pietro and Santa Maddalena, at around 1,130 metres, rises the jagged profile of the Odle Group — one of the most recognisable silhouettes in the entire Dolomites. It is a bucolic landscape of rolling pastures and forests where hurry seems never to have arrived.
Two small churches have made this valley a photographic icon known the world over: San Giovanni in Ranui, standing alone in the midst of the meadows, and the one at Santa Maddalena, with the Odle as its dramatic backdrop. But Funes is above all a valley that has chosen to remain itself — Tyrolean and farming — on the margins of mass tourism. Reinhold Messner grew up here, and the challenging high-altitude trail is dedicated to his brother Günther, who disappeared on Nanga Parbat.
Membership of the Puez-Odle Nature Park has allowed the pastures and pastoral environment to be preserved, and the Funes Visitor Centre introduces the geology of the Dolomites with a room dedicated to Messner himself. In summer the classic Adolf Munkel Trail wanders at the foot of the Odle through alpine dairies and flowering meadows; in autumn the larches blaze gold and the air turns crystal clear. In winter the valley empties and becomes the silent domain of snowshoers.
