Originally Posted by
ticino
1) there is enough variation in the Dolomites to stay there a whole summer. You'll need to stay for a few days given that the weather is pretty unstable. I always base myself in Cortina. In my opinion the Dolomites are way more beautiful than anything in Austria and most places in Switzerland.
2)I love Innsbruck, don't like Salzburg. I love Venice too (i definitely don't agree you have to keep out during the summer as most tourists leave early) but for a mountain trip I'd fly to Innsbruck. Having said this, Innsbruck is so badly connected that we always fly to Venice, Milano or Zurich. Zurich is a bit far away for the Dolomites but we have relatives there and there are some wonderful roads taking you to the Dolomites. If you have time a stop in St.Moritz or the smaller villages could be very nice.
3) I love Vienna (relatives there too) but not during the summer as it can get terribly hot, worse than Venice that at least has a nice sea breeze and lots of shadow. Vienna-Dolomites-(Venice)-Innsbruck would make sense (no fee for dropping in INN). Cortina-Vienna by car is quite boring unless you take the Grossglockner road.
Copenhagen is nice, but I'd spend my time in the mountains (add Jungfrau?) or doing the castles outside Paris (Versailles, Chantilly, Vaux-le-Vicomte, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Fontainebleau...). Don't limit yourself to downtown Paris! But I prefer Swiss or Italian food. I like Danish bread though.
You can drive all cars into Italy except luxury cars.
Appreciate the commentary! In the end, we decided to drop Copenhagen...will spend 3 days in Innsbruck, 7 days in the Dolomites, and 3 days at the end in Paris. We are flying into Innsbruck...the connections aren't too bad, and I was able to score an upgrade to business with GPUs on the flight across the pond. For the Dolomites, we decided to stay in San Cassiano, which is about an hour west of Cortina...there were a lot of nice choices lodging-wise, and it seems to be a bit more centrally located with regards to a lot of the day hikes that are in the area. It also seemed to be right up against the mountains and a tad less crowded than Cortina did.
If you do have any food suggestions or particular hikes in the Dolomites you would recommend - love to hear them! Would also be interested in any tips for Innsbruck...found one really good hike nearby, but debating how much hiking we should do vs. seeing the town, which seems small enough that hitting the major sights should be doable.