Sestriere (Milkyway), Italy, Skiing Review

Evergreen

I was skiing in Sestriere in Italy over the Christmas holidays with my wife and two young kids and here is a review that might be of help to others thinking of going there.

Overview of Sestriere:
Sestriere is North West of Turin (Torino) and takes about an hour and 15 mins to drive there from the Airport. There is an airport and bus service from the airport as well, but would advise some research on that one if it is your intended method of travel.

Ski Resort in The Milky Way, Italian Alps, about 8kms from the French boarder - 400km of Piste (1840m to 2840m)

Flights: Rating 4 out of 5
We flew with Ryanair and I am very surprised that I am giving them such a high rating. But, to be fair to them, everything was on time, there were no issues with checking in or boarding, good value for money even with baggage charges. Problem on return journey with delays at passport control, can't blame that on the airline though.

Be aware that the return flight is around 10:00am and if you are travelling by bus or train it leaves you with an early start - this is why we rented a car.

Car Rental: Rating 1 out of 5
When booking with Ryanair we were offered a Hertz car for EUR 125 for the week. It seemed like a great deal so we took it up.

However, when we arrived at the airport it was snowing, upon collecting our car at the Hertz desk we presumed that it would have snow tyres fitted, we presumed wrong. We were told that it was against Italian law for us to drive without snow equipment (Snow tyres or chains), but that as a result of some local Turin law that Hertz did not have to provide it for us. We were charged an extra EUR 130 to have a car fitted with snow tyres.

To be fair to Hertz Ireland, they refunded the amount charged for snow tyres when we complained about this after we returned home. However, it did put us in a bad mood at the start of our Christmas holiday

Hotel Edelweiss Savoy, Sestriere 4 out of 5
Small family run hotel. Very friendly staff, couldn’t do enough to help us with anything we needed. Value for money was excellent and the hotel was just a 150m walk to the ski school and chair lift.

Food was a bit hit and miss, but there was no shortage of it.

Don’t expect free WiFi

Ski Rental: Noleggio Sci Da Rossana - Rating 5 out of 5
This is a ski rental shop on the edge of the ski school and chair lift area, all that I can say about them is that they were fantastic.

You could walk down to the ski shop every day in your regular footwear and change into ski boots/equipment in the shop. You had an allocated space to leave a bag for each person during the day while you were out skiing and then at night they kept the skis and boots so you don’t have to lug them around with you.

They really loved the kids, each night they would put the kids ski boots onto a dryer so that they were nice and warm for them in the morning time. There was also and old guy who used to be there every morning when we getting ready and in typical Italian style made such a fuss over the kids.

Very good value for money as well, we booked 2 sets of telemark ski/boots, 1 set of intermediate ski/boots, one set of standard ski/boots and two sets of kids ski/boots/helmet and it came to a total of EUR 400

In addition, they allowed the kids to swap their skis for a sledge on a couple of afternoons without any extra charge

Ski School – Scuola Nazionale Sci - 4 out of 5
Really good ski school in terms of friendliness and willingness to interact with the children. We dropped the kids off every day from 9:30 until 12:00 and they loved it. The instructors were excellent skiers and took the kids all over the mountains once they realised what level they could ski at.

Thought it was a bit pricey though at EUR 175 per child for 6 days

Also, they have a limited amount of English speaking instructors.

There are plenty of ski schools in Sestriere so take your time and check it out before you go. A little tip, search for Scuola sci rather than ski school and you’ll find many more options.

Sestriere Resort: Rating 3 out of 5

Skiing: The slopes were superb, well maintained, great snow and lots of it. The only issue I have with the ski area is that the chair lifts don’t open until around 9:15

Value for money: I have to be honest, I felt that the ski pass was very expensive, at EUR 180 for each adult it was a difficult pill to swallow. Our youngest (almost 6) was allowed to ski for free, but our oldest (just turned 8) was considered adult and we had to pay the full EUR 180 for her.

Facilities: The cafeteria down in the village should be avoided at all costs, the food was bland, in short supply while costing a packet – for example, 4 cheese burgers (they don’t come with buns) with chips and a drink cost us EUR 47.00

Although we had paid EUR350 to the ski school, they still charged EUR 0.40 per child to use the toilet which in my mind was extremely mean and left a very bad taste in the mouth. They had a cross looking woman on the door to make sure that you paid the 40c and that the correct number of people used for the amount paid (i.e. no paying 40c and two kids having a wizz).

There are a couple of decent places to eat food on the slopes, but they are hard to find. I suggest asking for advice at the hotel you are staying in, pick the wrong one and you are in for a treat of expensive, bad, food being thrown at you by workers who don’t give toss. After two days we had given up on the slope restaurants and found a supermarket where we bought fresh local produce and brought our own food with us each day to the slopes instead.

Village: I’ve been to a lot of nice skiing villages around Italy and this was certainly not one of them. Most of the village is owned by one family and the village was built for the ski resort rather than the normal case of an old village developing a ski industry. As a result the village lacked locals, choice and charm.

Overall
Although we had a great holiday with the kids, certain aspects of the experience means that we will not go back there again.

Most everything in the area was overpriced and under quality.
There was a level of meanness that just took the shine of the holiday for us, e.g. 8 year old being charged as an adult, ski school charging kids to use the toilets, over priced junk food with bad service

Hope this review is helpful to anybody thinking of going there?

flikflak

Thanks for that, lots of info.

€180 for an adult lift pass in high season is about average (I presume that was for a week?). Also its always the way when you fly into an airport in the mountains that you have to pay extra for snow tyres. Why they dont just include them in the price I will never know as you are bound by law that you have to have them on the car so there is no way out of paying the charge for winterisation. It will have said something about it in the `extras` part in the T&C`s.

I Always take a packed lunch up the mountain too as it can get very expensive and also I cant ski on too much food!

Charging to go to the bathroom is a bit steep. I suppose it was done to stop every Tom Dick and Harry using the ski school jacks but surely the kids had something on them that identified them as ski school pupils that this woman could identlfy and let them in to pee?

dzer2

When you hire a car in the winter from most of the airports near skiing resorts they only have ones with snow tyre's this is just a ply to get more money. In France and Italy all cars have to be fitted with snow tyres in the winter by law. We booked our car through the Ryanair website and the tyres were included

a148pro

I always thought Italy was supposed to be cheap for skiing, disappointing to hear...

Evergreen

flikflak wrote: »

Thanks for that, lots of info.

€180 for an adult lift pass in high season is about average (I presume that was for a week?). Also its always the way when you fly into an airport in the mountains that you have to pay extra for snow tyres. Why they dont just include them in the price I will never know as you are bound by law that you have to have them on the car so there is no way out of paying the charge for winterisation. It will have said something about it in the `extras` part in the T&C`s.

I Always take a packed lunch up the mountain too as it can get very expensive and also I cant ski on too much food!

Charging to go to the bathroom is a bit steep. I suppose it was done to stop every Tom Dick and Harry using the ski school jacks but surely the kids had something on them that identified them as ski school pupils that this woman could identlfy and let them in to pee?

I compare this to my last skiing holiday in Italy a couple of years ago in Livingo.

Ski passes were provided with the apartment, restaurants were open and friendly and treated you like they wanted your business. People in general were just a lot more friendly.