The best après-ski bars, nightlife and activities in Passo Tonale
Neither Passo Tonale nor its sister village Ponte di Legno are renowned as party towns, but both have enough après-ski options to keep all but the most die-hard ravers happy. They’re close enough to the cities of Brescia and Bergamo to attract weekend skiers, especially at the beginning and end of the season when the high-altitude slopes are open longer than other resorts’.
Passo Tonale, the purpose-built village up on the titular pass (passo in Italian) at 1,800m, is probably the livelier of the two. It’s also got more budget-friendly options when it comes to searching out a pre-dinner Aperol spritz. Ponte di Legno, the older, more traditional village at 1,258m has some lovely café bars in the old town centre, and a few lively après spots on the slopes too.
For further Passo Tonale inspiration, see our guides to the resort's best accommodation and restaurants.
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Bars in Passo Tonale
La Baracca
La Baracca is a modern, two-storey glass building that sits just a stone’s throw from the solemn silence of Passo Tonale’s First World War memorial, but its pumping soundsystem and busy outdoor terrace couldn’t be further away in terms of vibe.
With several major runs converging on this point it always attracts a crowd at après-ski time, and things can get quite lively as the evening wears on, especially later in the season, when the sun stays on these south-facing slopes for longer. There are usually DJs, occasionally live bands, and often dancing on the tables at the weekend.
Price: ££
Contact: labaraccapassotonale.com
Bar Cadí
Although it’s just across the car park from Baracca, Bar Cadí offers something completely different. A cosy café-bar with just a handful of tables inside and a few more spilling out onto the pavement, it serves simple but tasty panini and excellent Campari spritz with a minimum of fuss.
On the surface it might not look like anything special, with standard wood-walled interiors and a glass-fronted bar, but it’s family owned, and the central location and incredibly reasonable prices means this is a place where ski instructors, guides and locals often gather, which is always a good sign.
Price: £
Contact: 00 39 036 490 3987
Gazana Bär
Gazana Bär’s prime location at the bottom of the slopes would attract lots of skiers whatever it did, but add in a large outdoor terrace, with scaffold-mounted lighting, a semi-circular bar, and a disco ball, and you have a recipe for rowdy après shenanigans.
The music here tends to be a little more old school than at the likes of Baracca (think rousing Country Roads singalongs, rather than pumping house) but the vibe is equally upbeat. Prices are pretty reasonable too, and while it doesn't have a fancy or exotic cocktail menu, if you’re sticking to beer, wine or spritz, you can’t go wrong.
Price: £
Contact: sportinghotel.com
Malga Valbiolo Bar Restaurant
At the bottom of the contrabbandieri (or “smugglers”) piste sits the Malga Vabiolo, a former cowshed converted into a self-service restaurant and bar with a large outdoor area. This zone is off to one side of the main resort, but with two chairlifts starting from here, and a third that drops you right outside the door, it’s worth a visit – especially at the end of the day when après starts to kick off.
There’s an excellent local covers band that regularly rocks the terrace, and if they’re not playing, there’ll be a DJ and dancing. This area gets sun relatively late in the day, and the piste back to town is a long, cruisey blue that shouldn’t present any problems, no matter how wobbly your legs are feeling.
Price: £
Contact: rifugipassotonale.it
La Tana dell’Orso
The main connection between Passo Tonale and Ponte di Legno is by lift, but there is a piste that links the two: a fun red run that snakes through the woods and never gets particularly crowded. Down at the bottom, you’ll find the Tana dell’Orso, a spa hotel with an excellent après bar. On cold days it provides a cosy refuge, and on hot days the outdoor tables are a great place to sit and sip a refreshing birra media.
The name translates as “the bear’s lair” and although there’s no record of any of the actual brown bears that have been recently reintroduced to this part of Italy rocking up to the bar, it’s easy to imagine this secluded spot in the woods might be the kind of place bears would enjoy doing their business.
Price: £££
Contact: pontedilegnotonale.com
Malga Campello
Malga Campello can only be reached by a long red run (red 20, Alpino), which means it’s often less crowded than the Passo Tonale’s other mountain huts, even on weekends, when the resort tends to be at its busiest.
The building is an old stone livestock shed that’s been refurbished, but hasn’t lost its original charm. The real highlight is its outdoor terrace, which offers stunning views across the valley into the Adamello-Brenta Natural Park – especially as the sun begins to dip.
The drinks and snacks menus are fairly standard: lager, wine, spritz and cocktails. But if we had to recommend anywhere in Passo Tonale to try a bombardino – the cream-topped, alcoholic eggnog that’s a must in Italian ski resorts – this would be it.
Price: ££
Contact: 00 39 346 350 2372
Panorama 3000
Panorama earns its place on this list of Tonale’s best bars for the same reason that it features on our list of best restaurants – because of the views. As the name suggests, it’s located 3,000m up, at the top of the highest lift in the whole resort, the Presena gondola. The bar-restaurant is compact, with only a dozen or so tables inside, but the massive glass windows offer excellent views over the surrounding peaks.
Outside, the bench seats offer even better views, and lots of people simply grab an Aperol spritz and stand around gawping at the awesome sight of the Adamello glacier, the largest in Italy. It’s worth noting that the only ski run down from here is a black, but if you don’t fancy it, downloading on the gondola is perfectly acceptable. In fact, many of those who come up here aren’t skiers at all, they’ve merely come for the view.
Price: ££
Contact: rifugipassotonale.it
Il Clan
Il Clan down in Ponte di Legno is the best late-night venue in the area. It’s also one of the only late-night venues in the area, which means it often collects a decent-sized crowd after 11pm. Evening parties kick off at 10pm and go on until 3am on Friday and Saturday nights, with local DJs spinning house and techno in the low-ceilinged space.
There’s also an earlier aperitivo session from 6pm every day, which usually has a slightly more restrained and civilised vibe, and the café actually opens at 9am each morning, serving coffee, drinks and sandwiches throughout the day. Its cocktail menu features all the classics, including Long Island Ice Tea, Sex on the Beach and Mai Tais, as well as a few more unusual concoctions such as the Angelo Azzurro (“blue angel”) made of blue curacao, gin and triple sec.
Price: ££
Contact: clanpontedilegno.it
Activities
Try mushing at the Italian Sled Dog School
The story of how the most prestigious sled dog school in Italy – and perhaps in the whole of continental Europe – came to be based in Passo Tonale is a strange one. It was established by Armen Khatchikian, whose life story sounds like it was lifted from a Jack London novel. An Italian citizen of Armenian descent, he was born in Khartoum, Sudan, and spent part of his youth in Yukon and Alaska, where he learned the art of “mushing”. He went on to complete the 1,800km Iditarod, the world’s most famous sled dog race.
On returning to Italy in 1985, he decided to set up shop with his two brothers in Passo Tonale, teaching his new passion to all-comers. The school offers sled dog rides to tourists, but also more serious courses if you want to try your hand at learning the ropes yourself.
Price: ££
Contact: scuolaitalianasleddog.it
Explore the area’s First World War history
During the First World War, the front line ran right through Passo Tonale, and several battles were fought on what are now ski slopes. Trentino, on the eastern side of the pass, was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, while Lombardy, on the western side, was Italian. For history buffs, the area is a gold mine – or rather, a tin mine, because locals still find tin helmets, rusting food cans, and bullet casings lying around to this day.
There are several sites to be visited in the village of Passo Tonale itself, including the war memorial. Up on the mountain, there’s a sound and light exhibition in an old artillery post which was excavated into the rock near the bottom of the Presena Glacier, and you can also visit Forte Strino, an Austrian fort which guards the approach to the pass.
Perhaps the best museum, however, is the Museo della Guerra in the nearby village Vermiglio, which helps put all the sites, and the horrors of fighting in the freezing cold at 3,000m, into stark context.
Price: £
Contact: vermigliovacanze.it/it/museo
How we choose
Every bar, venue or activity in this curated list has been expertly chosen by our ski expert, who has visited the resort to provide you with their insider perspective. We cover a range of budgets and styles, from casual pubs on the piste to exquisite cocktail bars – to best suit every type of skier – and consider the drinks, atmosphere and price in our recommendations. Non-ski activities are chosen to provide an alternative to traditional aprés, whether for families or adrenaline junkies looking to enjoy the mountains in winter away from the slopes. We update this list regularly to keep up with the latest openings and provide up to date recommendations.
Meet our expert
Tristan Kennedy is a British journalist based in the Italian Dolomites. He's been snowboarding for more than 25 years, and specialises in stories about adventure sports and the environment.
