Lago di Misurina

Lago di Misurina sits at 1,754 metres between Cortina and the Tre Cime, and it is the postcard everyone has already seen: still water with the Sorapiss group standing in it.

It is the largest natural lake in the Cadore, and almost everyone passes it, because the toll road up to the Tre Cime starts here.

Two things about it are less obvious. Its air is thought good enough for asthma that Italy's only children's asthma centre of its kind operates on the shore. And in 1956 the Winter Olympics held their speed skating here, on the frozen lake itself -- the last time an Olympic skating event was run on natural ice.

Misurina takes far more traffic than a lake this size can absorb, almost all of it passing through to the Tre Cime. Coming early or out of season, or arriving by bus, is the single most useful thing a visitor can do.

Stay on the shore path. The banks are soft and erode where people cut down to the water for photographs.

Do not swim or take boats onto the lake; it is protected, and its condition is tied to the institute on the shore.

Keep noise down near the Istituto Pio XII -- it is a working medical facility with children in long-stay treatment, not a hotel.

Take litter away with you. Summer volumes here overwhelm the bins by the middle of the day.

The lake itself is free, with a public path around the shore. Nothing is ticketed.

Parking is paid and fills early in summer. The lakeside road is busy, and traffic backs up because everyone is heading for the Tre Cime toll road that starts here.

It is about 30 minutes by car from Cortina; buses run in season.

Allow an hour for the circuit, more if you stop.

The shore path is level and largely accessible, which is rare in the Dolomites -- it is one of the few places at this altitude where the view can be had without a climb.

The Tre Cime toll road begins here and charges a substantial fee per car; it closes in winter and can fill to capacity in August.

There are hotels and cafés on the shore, so it works as a base as well as a stop.