Cinque Torri

Five dolomite towers stand on their own on open ground, pale grey and separate from the ridges behind them. The walk around them is short and mostly easy, and much of it runs through something else entirely: the trenches and timber shelters of the Italian front line, rebuilt on the spot as an open-air museum. Italian and Austro-Hungarian troops fought over this ground in the First World War. One to two hours covers the towers and the bunkers on the easy paths, and harder trails branch off from them. The rock itself belongs to climbers, who work routes of every grade up all five towers.

• Crowds: the chairlift area and the two huts are busy in high summer. Walk on for a few minutes and it thins out fast.
• The lift does not always run. One visitor found it closed and drove the steep, narrow road to the upper car park instead.
• Food: both mountain huts serve meals, one of them from a grill outside. Prices are high.
• Climbing: all five towers carry rock routes, at a range of grades.
• Winter: the towers sit inside the Dolomiti Superski area, linked to Lagazuoi and Col Gallina, and the summer paths are under snow.

Most people ride the chairlift up from the valley and cover the last stretch on foot; the towers are a few minutes from the top station. The alternative is to drive. A steep, narrow road climbs to a small car park close to the towers, and it is the way up when the lift is not running. Walking the whole way from the bottom is possible, and some do it, but it turns a short outing into a long day.

Better: early in the day in summer, before the first lifts have emptied onto the mountain.

Avoid: the middle of the day in July and August around the top of the chairlift.

The crowd here is concentrated rather than spread out. The lift area and the two huts fill up in high summer, and the walking gets quiet within a few minutes of leaving them. In winter the ground is under snow and given over to skiing.