Lago di Braies was not scooped out by a glacier but pooled behind a landslide that once dammed a mountain stream. The result is a lake of emerald water at 1,496 metres, held in by the sheer limestone walls of the northern Dolomites. Above the southern shore the Seekofel rises 2,810 metres in a single cliff, dropping into the surface as an almost flawless mirror on still mornings; in Ladin legend this wall is the gate to a lost mountain kingdom. The green of the water comes from fine rock flour carried down in the meltwater, and it shifts from turquoise to deep jade with the season and the light. A century-old wooden boathouse and a line of painted rowing boats sit on one bank, and from the same shore the Alta Via 1, the classic long trek of the Dolomites, sets off south toward Belluno.
At first light the valley is silent and the water lies like glass, and a single pull on an oar is enough to wrinkle the reflected peaks. A level path of about 3.5 kilometres circles the shore, turning a fresh view of lake and mountain at every bend, while stronger walkers climb on toward the high huts above. Summer brings the warmest water and the boats out on the lake; in October the larch woods burn gold on the slopes; by deep winter the whole lake freezes hard enough to walk across. This remote basin became one of the most photographed places in the Alps after the series Un passo dal cielo was filmed here, and it now draws such crowds that, from July to mid-September, driving into the valley by day means booking a slot or taking the shuttle. Arrive early or late, though, and the shore can still be almost your own.