Where to climb in Italy?

Hello! I’m having some trouble figuring out where to narrow this down to. My wife and I are finishing a summer trip in Italy July 5-20. We have a rental car, a 70m about 18 draws and nothing but time but can’t decide where to go! If you have any specific recommendations I’d love to hear which places you’ve enjoyed the most anywhere in the country. My wife would like me to include that we enjoy the beautiful settings over just hard climbing for this trip.

As a side note If you’ve been to the Dolomites and had to recommend one single sport climb or scramble or whatever I’d love to hear what that would be also.

Thanks as always for any information!

Get ahold of this book. I have been using it for five years to visit various places in the Dolomites (making my third trip next week). My only recommendation would be to avoid popular areas on the weekends. There can be a congo lines. 

If it wasn't in the middle of summer I would highly recommand finale (the area aroud finalborgo) but I m afraid it will be too warm.
If you go there find crags within the forrest where you will enjoy the shade.
1 000+ routes to choose from. 

Best to use this topo

Depending on where you're flying in from. If you're flying into Milan, a trip into Valle d'Aosta is a must. Seeing the shear prominence of Mt. Blanc from Courmayer(the Italian side of Mt. Blanc) is truly incredible. I'm sure there's sport climbing in the adjacent valley's next to Courmayer. Cogne, Valsvavarenche, Valle Di Rhemes. All super alpine and can be accessed relatively quickly by car. If you wanted you could take the tunnel in Courmayer and be in Chamonix w/in 20 min.

Watch the weather. Finale could be an option. We climbed there the first week of August in 2019 and did ok. I posted some Rocca di Perti routes we did. Ditto for Arco but finding shade may not be as easy.

There are sport crags in the dolomites though I have not climbed at them, other than what you find at Cinque Torri (which is must do). Sass di Stria base and Frea at Passo Gardena are examples. The Rushforth Rockfax guide would cover what you would need. Plenty of options.

Granite-wise Val di Mello is a no brainer:

https://www.thecrag.com/en/climbing/italy/val-di-mello

Mostly trad though.

I’d toss a vote in for Arco. Yes it’ll be hot around Lake Garda but the area is huge, primo sport climbing and there’s always something with a shaded aspect. Plus Lake Garda is amazing and I found it to be remarkable cheap for both food and places to stay. I think it ranks pretty high on the list of all-time sport climbing-vacation spot locations. 

climbed in Arco last week, even in full shade at ~9am it was too hot and humid to be much fun.  Very slimy limestone.  That said, I saw some guy climbing in the sun another day, so it depends on your heat tolerance (mine is low) and obviously the weather.

 Lake Garda/Arco is an amazing place to visit with tons of crags but yes it may be too hot. I would definitely go to the dolomites for cooler temps and get the dolomites guidebook to find where the concentration of sport climbing areas are . You won't be disappointed going there.  Visiting both of these places is pretty practical as they're only a few hours apart.

Look into cinque Torre, sass de stria, sass diacia, Tridentia crag, citta dei sassi.

If you want beautiful settings and summer conditions, my top 3 (assuming multipitch sport is a major part of the equation) would be (w/ links to local documentation on multipitch sport routes):

- the Dolomites (note, this link goes to a terribly-formatted but very extensive list of multipitch sport routes in the area. The purple links of route names on the left hand side are just one of the 7 pages that can be toggled between using the page numbers on the top).

-  the Aosta valley (Gulliver.it is the Italian mountainproject equivalent, with a page for each multipitch route but all single pitch routes rolled up into high-level 'falesia' entry for each crag. The site sorts routes by the route's most recent trip report)

- the major valleys west of Cuneo (Valle Maira, Stura, and to a lesser extent Grana). Famous formations include Rocca la Meja, Torre Castello, and Corno Stella. If you stay at low elevation you can also sneak over to Finale. 

Note: the expectation in Italy on multipitch routes is double 50m ropes (typically 40-50m spacing between stations), so you will want to ensure the route either offers sub-35m rap spacing or a walkoff. I'd guess about 2/3-3/4 of all routes should be feasible with a single so it's not a huge limiting factor, but it is something to consider. Alternatively, if you don't mind being jank you could buy a cheap 30m rope at Decathlon for $30 and do a biner block rap.

I just finished a week in #3 and can't say enough good things. It's got a near lifetime of climbing, few crowds (zero on weekdays), and no climbers crowding you out of the route you wanted to do. Because there's no mountain-specific tourism hotspots like big hotels or ski resorts the tourist volume is night-and-day different from the former 2. It also consistently has some of the best summer climbing conditions in Europe - way more sun than the dolomites/Aosta and perfect high-altitude temps.

I climbed last week in Finale on the famous but heinously polished technical limestone and had the opposite of a good time - maybe it's nice in the winter when the polish's effect is smaller but it's heinous in the summer. In hindsight I should've stuck to the overhanging stuff (of which there's less than other famous limestone areas but still plenty), but I'd still be sweating like mad - not my ideal vacation. However, it's only an hour(ish) from Cuneo so it makes a convenient backup to the above in the event of suspect weather.

Amazing beta and crazy comprehensive advice. Seriously thanks a ton to all of you who wrote that’s awesome. Putting together an itinerary today for the next few weeks and I’m going off this info. Y’all are great!

Alright we got fucked bad today with a happy ending (hopefully). Long story short we took 6 hours of trains to Milan today from Switzerland to find out that Italy is the only country in the EU where you’re legally required to have an international drivers license to rent a car. Our entire Italy leg of this trip was dependent on that. By some miracle we were able to cancel our housings with minimal losses but it’s a huge bummer since we’re in Milan now with nowhere to go. Fortunately we also found $60 flights to Kalymnos tomorrow morning and the airbnbs are $62 a night, so we fly out in 10 hours. Wanted to pass this along so it doesn’t happen to anyone else, embarrassingly I didn’t even know this was a thing before today. Thanks again for the beta either way!

Bummer! Yeah it’s not very well advertised and some rental agencies won’t ask so it’s not even universal. It’s supposedly required if you’re pulled over but I’ve heard that’s not really enforced.

 Fwiw, you could alternatively rent a car across the border and return it in Italy or wherever you fly out of.

Try a different agency. We didn't need one back in March. All it is is a transcription of your US drivers license so they're being a bit of an ass requiring it.

Ah damn, yes this is a huge bummer. When I traveled there I was fortunate enough to have a gf who did the research and got me to grab one from AAA. $50 for them to look at my DL and stamp a paper card. Hope Kalymnos works out for ya! 

I heard about the license thing from a relative shortly before my trip, got the international from AAA, and in the end the rental company just wanted our US licenses. Weather's been really iffy in Dolomites the past week anyways, I hope Greece is awesome.

Tanner James wrote:

Alright we got fucked bad today with a happy ending (hopefully). Long story short we took 6 hours of trains to Milan today from Switzerland to find out that Italy is the only country in the EU where you’re legally required to have an international drivers license to rent a car. Our entire Italy leg of this trip was dependent on that. By some miracle we were able to cancel our housings with minimal losses but it’s a huge bummer since we’re in Milan now with nowhere to go. Fortunately we also found $60 flights to Kalymnos tomorrow morning and the airbnbs are $62 a night, so we fly out in 10 hours. Wanted to pass this along so it doesn’t happen to anyone else, embarrassingly I didn’t even know this was a thing before today. Thanks again for the beta either way!

Weird, we rented a car in Milan without international driver’s license in 2019. Must be a recent change!

FYI, in Kalymnos you also need an international driver’s license to rent a car ( as we discovered this May). But you could easily get by without a car, lots of crag accessible by walking, or a boat ride. Or, get a scooter instead. 

Tanner James wrote:

Alright we got fucked bad today with a happy ending (hopefully). Long story short we took 6 hours of trains to Milan today from Switzerland to find out that Italy is the only country in the EU where you’re legally required to have an international drivers license to rent a car. Our entire Italy leg of this trip was dependent on that. By some miracle we were able to cancel our housings with minimal losses but it’s a huge bummer since we’re in Milan now with nowhere to go. Fortunately we also found $60 flights to Kalymnos tomorrow morning and the airbnbs are $62 a night, so we fly out in 10 hours. Wanted to pass this along so it doesn’t happen to anyone else, embarrassingly I didn’t even know this was a thing before today. Thanks again for the beta either way!

Sorry this happened, Tanner, but big thanks for the PSA! I'm headed to France tomorrow, renting a car, and plan to drive in Italy during my trip. It sounds like I might not need an international driver permit since I'm renting the car in France (and France doesn't require one), but I went out and picked one up just in case it matters when I cross a border or if I get pulled over. I hope Greece works out!

For anyone else reading this and wondering about the IDP: it was pretty painless. I went in to a local AAA office, filled out a quick "application," they took two passport size photos for me (or you can bring your own), and I was back out the door with my IDP in less than 20 minutes, less ~$30.

Maybe a bit of a scam or unnecessary, but worth it in my view to avoid a potential hassle.

I’ve had several people say they rented cars without one, and some have agreed. I guess it depends on the agency and if they care or not. We actually went to another agency down the road and they said they technically could get us a car but since we don’t have an IDP they require the fullest extent of coverage and it was out of our range. We booked a car a month ago, the smallest hilarious fiat stick shift for $35 a day total and like $430 total for the trip. The one down the road was almost $2000 for the same period when we walked in, out of our range. Honestly Kalymnos flights were $60 and Airbnb was $50 a night so we’re going to end up saving quite a bit compared to Italy I believe. Thanks again eveeyone!

It's all a scam. The car rental agency, Autovia, we used this past winter at Milan airport charged us $1200 on top of the $600 we prepaid through a third party application. In my friends words after we drove back and forth to multiple car rental agencies then back to this one and they lay the $1200 charge on our heads. "Wait, you're going to fuck us more?" I hadn't laughed that hard in a long time when he said that to them.