Savoia Debili

Going independently with christine@skiinitaly.com

by sean_p

If you fancy a mega andrenaline 90 second ride speeding down 19 hairpin bends then try the Taxi Bob, some of us even managed to go down to Turin olimpic stadium to watch Juventus A group of lads from Birmingham

We had a great time, snow conditions so the locals say the best since 30 years both this year and it seems also last year.

We stayed in a great little family run hotel just by the piste, Franco and Patriza looked after us, the rooms were excellent,food plantyful and perfect position for sking.

Flew in with Ryan air from East Midlands for a ridiculous price and booked all we needed through skiinitaly.com.

The owner, ex-rep from 18 years Christine made travelling independently so easy.

She booked all we needed from the transfer from Turin,recommended the hotel as above,the ski hire with free ski lockers or helmet ( New K2 Apache skis and twin tip public enemy!! at almost the same price of standard skis),
Christine also offers discounted ski school and The CHEAPEST lift pass in town.

What can I say Mega resort for skiing and more, great night life, value for money drinking happy hours.

Email christine@skiinitaly.com with your needs she will do the rest and say hallo to her from Sean and the gang

Don't pay package prices for hire

by chrishc

We hired our skis from a shop called Lo Sportivo, they were advertising a package of boots, skis and sticks for 39 euros, my skis cost 35 euros for the week, I have my own boots, my friend got superior carvers for 59? euros compared to the £35 and £62 that Airtours were asking for . . . and Lo Sportivo have another shop further up near the slopes where they would store your skis overnight for free.

What a great week

by chrishc

"Great skiing but might suffer with lack of snow"

This is where I learnt to ski over 20 years ago and it was good to go back and see what the resort was like from the point of view of a competent skier.

I wasn't disappointed and the skiing at Sauze was good although the Sportinia and Clotes areas got very crowded at times and as the weather warmed up the lower areas got quite slushy.

The Genvris area had some nice runs but was only served by button lifts which was a bit wearing.

In fact the whole Sauze area needs to spend some money on upgrading its lifts, there were a lot of buttons and the chair lifts were mostly old and there was often not enough room to squeeze your skis onto the rest when the bar was brought down.

Only minor irritations and the runs in Sansicario and Sestriere (site of the Alpine events for the 2006 winter Olympics) were excellent. Claviere also had a lot to offer but the connecting lifts from the bottom of the Sansicario area (Cesana???) were a bit of a pain.

The run back to Sauze from Sansicario was quite steep but always had excellent snow so would not be as daunting as it may look to intermediate skiers who had chosen not to attempt the crossing, (the run does look quite scary from a distance).

Only downside is that there is not a clear run down to Sestriere, I think the general idea is that you ski halfway down and then catch the gondola, but down lifts are not really in the script so we continued down and ended up at a road above setriere and had quite a long walk to get to another skiable area).

We were staying outside the main village in the Gran Villard area and didn't bother with the legendary nightlife but I have it on good authority that if you are a party animal there is plenty of choice.

The local bus driver Mario (the blue bus) was a really cheery character and once he knew you would stop between bus stops and take you back to the hotel stop (sometimes right up to the hotel).

All in all an excellent resort and would recommend it to anyone with the proviso (make sure there is good snow there).

Skiing in Italian Paradise

by leahlefler

"So what's my European ski boot size?"

We were living in Ireland and decided to book a Panorama Ski holiday trip to the Via Lattea (Milky Way) area. We chose a hotel in Jouvenceaux and skied the Sauze d'Oulx resort for a week. The Italian Alps were Beautiful, and we were surprised to find no snow at the level of our hotel. We went to rent skis, and I had no idea what my boot size was. After trying on many boots, I settled on a 42. We decided to hit the slopes right away, and I found my feet swimming in the boots! After some minor adjustments, we realized I was really a size 39 and the skiing went much smoother after that!