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What's everyone's favourite these days?
Looking at map I can see the below but haven't been skiing in an age. Let's say I'm an intermediate but have never been skiing in Italy before:
Courmayeur
Pré‑Saint‑Didier
Breuil‑Cervinia
Cervinia
Mongnod/Torgnon
Brusson
Evolène Sauze d’Oulx
Other thing I can't work out is if it is worth staying out of resort and driving in every morning if it's under 30 mins. Anyone have experience of this?
Stay in Aosta. Ski at Pila. There is a deal where you can go for a day at the other Val d'Aosta resorts. 6 Day pass for Pila gets you 2 of those days at any of the other Val d'Aosta resorts. The middle of Aosta is a nice regional city for a mooch about in in the evening. Gondola goes right up to Pila in about 20 mins.
check snow records, I’m pretty certain Courmayeur has really struggled to get any snow in recent years
Look at the Monte Rosa resorts, hidden gems.
I would go to Cervinia. It’s one of my favourite resorts in Europe. So much skiing to be had assuming your happy to go over to the zermat side. Only ever been on package trips for skiing so can’t comment on self planned
Cervinia for sure for the bonus Zermatt experience as well.
Other thing I can't work out is if it is worth staying out of resort and driving in every morning if it's under 30 mins. Anyone have experience of this?
I've often pondered this, but in-resort parking is getting harder to find and more expensive, certainly for Cervinia.
Edit - also, last time we were there, the traffic up and down the valley was mental. It was the New Year week, but I've never seen it so gridlocked.
Some of those listed are not resorts -= Pré-st-didier is a village between Courmayeur and La Thuile, there are no lifts there directly. Mongnod is a single lift in the Torgnon area, which itself is not huge from what I can see
Check out OpenSkiMap.org to see more of the details
https://openskimap.org/?obj=908c6ba5cfd0fb82517b8bf756c1902786246e07#12.5/45.80723/7.5615
Breuil-Cervinia is a village / resort within the Cervinia ski area. I've never skiied there, or indeed most of the others mentioned, so can't comment directly. However I've skiied several timea at Courmayeur and LOVE it, would highly recommend it. I've also skiied the Monterosa area and can also recommend that,
The option of basing yourself in Aosta is a good one - there's a Gondola right up to the Pila ski area above town, ubt as mentioned already a 6 day pass to MOST (maybe all) of the resorts will allow you two days in other resorts. It's easier if you have your own transport but We have previously used this offer to ski at La Thuile from Courmayeur by taking local busses. La thuile itself is another option, you can even ski over the border to La Rosiere in France, though the border crossing over the col uses drag lifts which are long, slow and exposed to the wind so can be horrible in bad weather or if you're on a snowboard
Check out Denfinella's report over on snowheads of an Aosta trip covering multiple resorts in one week, their resports are great and give loads of information
https://www.snowheads.com/ski-forum/viewtopic.php?t=163707&view=next
If not Italy, I’ve done Turin to Serre Chevalier a number of times. Straightforward drive (about 2 hours from memory) and a really good resort too. You could even stop in Briancon for the proper town experience, though you might be downloading at the end of the day depending on time of year if you do.
Cervinia
Been dozens of times. It's fantastic. If you have a car and a week pass or longer then you get a day at one of the other Aosta valley resorts. Pila is an hour's drive from Cervinia. La Thuile about an hour and a half. Both worth a day trip. I wasnt a massive fan of Champoluc
I can highly recommend and second Trout's comments above about staying in Aosta; we did this in March '26 for a very successful and fun, flexible group trip. The core group of 4 stayed for a week and two more joined us in the middle for three days. We all Flew into Turin, rented a 9 seater Transit and stayed in a decent, spacious city apartment located in between the old town centre and the gondola station. The apartment had private underground parking; the car park beside the gondola station is huge, so no issues there and it's next door to a hypermarket. We skied Pila three times that week, Cervinia/Zermatt once, same with Courmayeur and La Thuile/La Rosiere. Driving to and from the airport was straightforward, as is getting around in the valley. Courmayeur is an easy drive and has convenient parking too; the day we skied there we changed in the van then had dinner in town before heading back. The drive up to Cervinia was the longest day trip and to be fair, despite having a great day there and hopping over the border, I might not bother if doing this format of trip again. Especially as there are a couple of smaller places in the valley that might warrant a very different sort of day visit. Crevecol is just up the Grand St Bernard road from town or Cogne for another tiny Alpine village with a couple of lifts and loads of xc for a different day out.
Food in the city at nights was really excellent and great value; one night four of us had a lovely, high quality restaurant three course meal with a bottle of wine, bottled water and coffees for 108Euros! Passes are less than in France; resort lunches and coffees/beers in Italy are much better value than France or Switzerland and the coffee is way better..
Good thread this. I'll certainly add Aosta to the list of future ski destinations. My input is Champoluc. Great skiing and reasonably priced food and drink though was in 2018
Doh... '25. Sorry for any confusion! I am a bit thick..
Champoluc is a good shout as well, although when skiing the Monte Rosa region I prefer to stay in Gressoney, just over the hill in the next valley and therefore more central in that network.
I prefer to stay in Gressoney,
Can concur, have stayed at the Hotel Dufour (with the Snowheads trip) and can recommend that - it's excellent. If you do choose this area, check the location: Gressoney-Saint-Jean has only a small ski area. Gressoney-La-Trinité and Tschafal at the head of the valley are on the much larger Monterosa lift system
https://openskimap.org/?obj=dfd7e42a7934c1bcc50b3653b4935a1094d2439a#13.5/45.83623/7.83051
There's loads of off-piste round there as well in good conditions (that's wh the Snowheads trip goes there)