I was starting to despair for awhile that noone here at LL had been there, and suddenly all sorts of great replys show up! Thanks very much. There's much great info there for me to study.
Greg, thanks for the warning about the Sella Ronda bike ride on July 12; my tentative schedule is to fly home on the 12th, so we'll be driving to an airport somewhere the day before and be well out of the way. But in case the schedule slips a day, I'm now warned. The Puez-Odle park web site looks great - I'll look at it in more detail tonight. That looks like a very scenic area (and easy to explore from Selva).
Erik, that's a great photo of Drei Zinnen. We'll definitely have to go there. Your other photos include some wonderful ones too. I especially like the one on the first page, 2nd in the 2nd row, called "20080528DSC01945". It looks like it's approaching a pass; where is it???
Wolfman, I'll look up all your suggestions on my map when I get home tonight (I have a Michelin northern Italy road map and several hiking topo maps covering the potentially useful areas). We'll have about a week there, so we should have plenty of time for hiking and exploration. Just one question - I've seen guidebook recommendations for Alpe di Siusi elsewhere, but the views I've seen in photos from there don't look all that interesting to me compared with either high-elevation (mountaintop) views into the distance or in-the-deep-valleys-looking-up-at-the-peaks views elsewhere in the Dolomites. Is it really worth a day, or would our time be spent better elsewhere?
I've seen a few very interesting-looking photos from the Pale di San Martino, a little to the south of the regions most of you are talking about; have any of you been there?
Thank you all so much,
Lisa