Val di Funes is a quiet side valley in South Tyrol, the kind you find almost by accident and then never forget. Above the meadows and farmsteads of San Pietro and Santa Maddalena, at about 1,130 metres, the jagged Odle Group rises into one of the most recognisable skylines in the whole of the Dolomites. It's a rural landscape of rolling pasture and forest where the rush of things never quite seems to have arrived.
Two small churches have made the valley famous the world over: San Giovanni in Ranui, alone in the middle of the meadows, and the one at Santa Maddalena, with the Odle behind it. But more than anything, Funes is a valley that chose to stay itself, Tyrolean and farming, at the edge of mass tourism. Reinhold Messner grew up here, and the hard high-altitude trail is named for his brother Günther, who vanished on Nanga Parbat.
Being part of the Puez-Odle Nature Park has kept the pastures and the farming way of life intact, and the Funes Visitor Centre walks you through the geology of the Dolomites, with a room on Messner himself. In summer the classic Adolf Munkel Trail rambles along the foot of the Odle past alpine dairies and flowering meadows. In autumn the larches turn gold and the air goes clear. In winter the valley empties out and belongs to the snowshoers.
When it is worth coming to Val di Funes, month by month: When to Go to the Dolomites: A Month-by-Month Guide.
