Sestrière (Via Lattea) 6 Day Snow Forecast

John from United Kingdom writes:

We stayed in Sestrière in March 2009 at the Olympic apartments. The weather was great and the snow conditions: excellent, although a little slushy in the afternoon as the temperature rose.

My family (wife and children: aged 6 and 8) stayed there for £420 a head including flight, transfer, apartment, lift passes (youngest free), premium ski hire and lessons for the kids.

We went expecting the worst and were pleasantly surprised.

Pros:

The apartment was clean with great access to two lifts taking you to the skiing in Sestrière and Sauze.

The runs were fairly long and very pretty. Especially on the Sauze side where there is plenty of ski-line skiing. Of course, when the snow is bad, Sestrière has a much better ski record.

These resorts are seen by the Italians as weekend resorts so the lifts are quiet. We were told this was common throughout much of the season.

The gondolas between Sestrière and Sansicario/Sauze provided you with quick links. It was very easy for us to ski the morning in Sauze/Sansicario and be back in time to pick the kids up from ski school in Sestrière.

There are lots of small mountain restaurants. Even though the ones in Sestrière were self service; they were really pleasant. None of the huge motorway style ones you find in France and Austria.

Ski school for the kids was great.

Cons:

The olympic village is a rabbit run but for the money, we weren't complaining. We didn't pay a deposit but an English group who did, got their money back in a few minutes. Our apartment was quiet but I can imagine it could be bad if the village was packed out.

The lift guys in Sestrière need to be more safety concious when it comes to children. Some of the chair lifts come around very fast. When they hit our kids, there were instances when the lift person did not even slow the chair down, despite our child clinging on to the side of the chair. Our youngest had to jump off some of the chairs at the top and it was a worry that you had lift employees sitting in their booth, feet on the desk, reading a book.

We were told by someone working in the resort that the higher lifts close if gusts of wind exceed 45kph. We could not access some of the higher lifts nor get across to Sauze for three days. However, the person we spoke to said that they had a much lower death rate than other countries, especially France. So a con but better than coming home in a box.

Restaurants in town were a mixed bag. There is one (Mama Lio???) where the food was good but the waiter was so arrogant it really meant you never wanted to go back. Il Centro was good and La Baita was excellent - packed with locals - cash only.

It is misleading to say that Montigenevre is part of the resort. If you take lessons in Sestrière in the morning, I don't think you would have time to get over there in the afternoon.

Would we go back? Yes

2009-04-04