Italy’s top Winter Olympic resorts

The 2006 Winter Olympic Games will be held in the mountains near Torino, Italy. Long the home of Italian skiing champions and the site of Sestriere, Europe’s first purpose-built resort, this northwest corner of Italy has remained relatively undiscovered by American skiers and snowboarders.

Here, along the rugged border between Italy and France, the Alps rise majestically, the Italian dolcevita mixes with French laissez faire, and the regional cuisine draws from the best of Italy and France. This region, the Piemonte, owes its Franco-Italian cultural blend to the continual shifts of international borders through the centuries as nobles pledged their allegiance alternately to French and Italian kings.

The hilltops and valleys bear witness to the warfare that marked relations along this mountain border. Massive castles and fortifications lie along mountain ridges and protect narrow valley entrances. But for all this defensive posturing, valleys and towns tended to change sides more for political and religious reasons than because of military might.

The mountains that once formed a natural boundary are traversed today by hundreds of kilometers of ski and snowboard trails and by a web of gondolas, chairlifts and cable cars.

The Olympic Games will take place throughout this region. Sestriere will host most of the men's downhill events. Cesana-San Sicario will be the site of women’s downhill, biathlon, bobsled, skeleton and luge events. Sauze d'Oulx will showcase the freestyle events. Bardonecchia claims the snowboard venues. Olympic villages will be located in Bardonecchia and Sestriere.

For American and British tourists, the best towns to use as a base for discovering this Piemonte area are Sestriere and Sauze d'Oulx. They the most central and have the largest collection of hotels and amenities. Though these resorts are linked by snow-covered trails, there is a big difference in village flavor.

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Sestriere is a modern, bustling and fashionable resort on the main road, and is surrounded by lifts. Sauze d'Oulx, which is tucked at the end of a winding mountain road, is a traditional village laced with a warren of narrow cobbled streets; there is only limited lift access to the far-reaching trails. Sestriere is very Italian with a rhythm that reflects traditions of coffee, après-ski at the hotels, and some late-night disco action. Sauze d'Oulx is packed with British, Dutch, Irish and other European tourists and its pubs positively rock when the lifts close.

Skiing and snowboarding
There is plenty of skiing and riding for those searching for long cruising runs. Most of the area trails have been cut for beginners and intermediates. There are a few black trails here and there, but for the most part, Italians come to ski for enjoyment rather than challenge, and these resorts reflect that state of mind. That said, real expert skiers and riders can keep themselves busy off - piste. With an area this large, any real expert skier will find plenty of challenge.

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Sestriere  has the best access to the slopes by far, and it has the most challenging skiing in terms of marked terrain. A dozen lifts -- six of them quads -- take skiers from the town to the upper reaches of the mountain.

Sauze d'Oulx has beautiful winding trails through forests. The best skiing and lift service is higher on the mountain. Access to the town, whether skiing down or trying to get a lift up, is torturous. New lifts being installed for the Olympics will help, but this is a town where getting to the lifts is a chore, but finding a wild bar is child's play. Almost all the trails are intermediate, and beginners don't really have an easy time of it.

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