The “krapfen refuge” in Val di Fassa goes viral on social media: kilometre-long queues for a 4 euro dessert. Is it really worth it?
Is it really worth it? Tens of millions of views on social media. Not for a landscape (even if the Dolomite mountains deserve much more), nor for a peak, but rather to endure hours and hours of queuing and then enjoy a healthy breakfast with a nice krapfen. It happens at the Friedrich August refuge, between Col Rodella and Passo Sella, in Val di Fassa (north-eastern Trentino). Here, the fried donut has become the perfect content: you eat it with the Dolomites in the background, you take photographs, you post. And it works.
It works too. In recent days, images of the endless queues have made the rounds on social media. Dozens of people milling in columns, waiting for their turn. Some arrived by car from far away, especially for the occasion (and what are you doing, do you miss it?) just to make a video on social media and boast of having heroically waited for hours and hours and managed to consume the famous dessert in the very famous Dolomite refuge, at the “modest” price of 4 euros. In short, the picture is truly tragicomic.
What fuels the tale of the “krapfen refuge”
Yes, there are those who leave at night, rush onto the motorway at full speed to arrive in time and, after several hours of driving, find themselves having to face just as many hours of queuing. The logic is as simple as it is questionable: first you see the video, and you go into raptures. Then we frantically organize the trip, with our own car. Finally, the climb to the refuge begins. It’s not so much the gastronomic experience or the mountain, therefore, but rather the fashion of the moment and the possibility of immortalizing yourself while accomplishing the featto decide the holiday itinerary.
The route itself, to be honest, is short: from the Passo Sella car park it takes about twenty minutes to reach the refuge, therefore accessible even to those who have no mountain experience. And this is exactly it accessibility to intensely feed the influx.
A tourism different from the past
According to the Val di Fassa Tourism Company (Apt), the turning point came with the pandemic: new clientele, shorter stays, less familiarity with the mountain environment. A curiosity: APT has stopped working with influencers for two seasons. Advertising is no longer needed, therefore, it is necessary to limit its effects.
A refuge manager clarified that the longest queue, the one that went viral, was due to a fault in the internet line, not just the turnout: “Around nine o’clock everything stopped, we couldn’t even make the payments.”
The basic issue remains: a dessert, no matter how good, should not transform a historic mountain trail into a funnel of tourists endless. Also because the reality is that it is not the dessert that attracts tourists, but rather the social effect, which has transformed a refuge nestled in the Dolomites that serves excellent donuts into the place (and dessert) of the moment.
