Just returned from a week walking in the Dolomites staying in the Chalet Salvan in Selva Val Gardena. Had a wonderful week enhanced greatly by the outstanding service provided by chalet hosts Jake and Georgia whose youthful enthusiasm and knowledge of the area enabled us to explore and enjoy the region.
Super home cooked food each evening with wine together with a great breakfast and packed lunch set you up for a great day. We hadn't stayed in a catered chalet before but would highly recommend this one.

We liked to informal and friendly atmosphere including people sharing their experiences of walks and climbs to help each other plan where to go.

Accommodation was very clean and comfortable very close to local transport to explore the valley and access an extensive number of cable cars providing access to wonderful mountain scenery and we'll signposted walks. If it rains don't miss the “Ice Man" museum in Bolzano it is excellent and can be accessed by bus from Selva. Altogether a great holiday.

When we go on holiday, we normally like to stay in a 4 star hotel with a pool and plenty of other facilities but the cost of doing this in Selva was just too much for us. To be honest, most of the 3 star hotels were out of our budget as well! We ended up choosing the Salvan because it was close to the village centre and looked like good value for money. It is a Crystal/Thomson hosted chalet and includes breakfast, a packed lunch, afternoon tea and cakes and a 3 course dinner with wine 6 days a week so we decided this would make up for having no pool etc. It turned out to be a great decision as we hardly spent any money on food or drink during the week. The girls who ran the chalet were really friendly and helpful and the food was frankly gorgeous (and this comes from a fussy eater). It was so nice to be able to come in from a long day of walking and relax outside with a cup of tea and a slice of cake and the tiny dining room meant there was always someone to talk to at mealtimes.

The bedrooms were fairly basic though, but fine for the price we were in room 6 which is a twin room in the eaves with balcony. Sadly the balcony was in the shade so it was too cold to use but we could use the table outside the main door instead if we wanted to sit out. Being in the eaves made the configuration of the room a bit awkward and it took us a little while to get used to the low ceilings, this was particularly a problem in the bathroom as the bath was tiny and only has a showerhead attachment, not a proper shower. All of this was more than manageable for a week though.

There is a drying room where you can leave clothes and boots to dry off if necessary. There are books and games for you to use on a wet day and an honesty bar if you’d rather have a beer with your dinner. The rooms do have TVs, but they didn’t have any English channels so we only used them for looking at the Italian weather forecasts.

The chalet’s location is very good, on the edge of town but only a minute from the nearest bus stop and 2 minutes from the Ciampinoi lift. The tourist office and village centre are less than 10 mins walk away. The main path to the chalet is very steep but you can avoid this by taking the old train line path which runs just below it. There are lots of bars and restaurants near the chalet on our chalet hosts night off we went to the Costabella restaurant and had some lovely Tirolean dumplings and Wiener Schnitzel. We found food and drink prices were quite high, even in the supermarkets, and were even higher in the mountain huts (2 Apple Strudels, a hot chocolate and a bottle of water were 12 euros).