This year we were lucky to spend mid-term break (which lines up with Presidents’ Day/“ski week” in the U.S.) in the Dolomites, Italy. Neither
David nor I have spent time in the mountains doing snow sports in Europe previously, and the number of choices on where to go was actually overwhelming (champagne problems, I know). After asking some friends and reading many articles called “Top 10 ski resorts for families in Europe” we decided on Madonna di Campiglio (shown from above on the right here). We chose it primarily due to its relative proximity to a direct flight and so David could practice his Italian (hey, we had to use some parameters to narrow the field). We also knew Sally would be in cuisine heaven (pizza, pasta, gelato!). And, who am I kidding, David and I love that stuff also.
Madonna di Campiglio is a delightful small town in the Dolomites, yet another UNESCO World Heritage Site. I found out while snow-shoeing that the town barely existed (just some barns for the numerous cattle) until after World War II, so it’s a very new town as Europe goes. The ski area(s) is enormous…purchase of one pass gives access to several small interconnected mountains. It looked a bit confusing at first, but soon we got the hang of it.
While we’ve been very fortunate to get a lot of days (& long weekends) in on the mountain in recent years, I think this is the longest contiguous ski vacation I’ve ever taken. Here they only book hotels in full weeks so we got the entire week. We signed Sally up for ski school and, I’m not going to lie, I was almost as nervous as she was the first day when we dropped her off (not that I let her see that!). The instructors purportedly speak English, but the majority of the lesson is in Italian. It was a bit nerve-racking just leaving her with an outwardly disorganized looking group near a gondola and hoping for the best. However, she had a great time and even said she was excited to go back. She’s done a lot of ski school over the years and has never been this enthusiastic! I think it helps that she’s also finally old enough for poles, so she felt super cool. On the final day they had a little competition and she got a metal (calm down, they all did) and of course she was delighted.
The weather was primarily gorgeous. The day we arrived and drove up from Verona it was weird winter foggy, making the mountains difficult to see at all. We did stop for lunch at Lake Garda, which was beautiful even in the fog.
So it was even more exciting when we arose the following morning and we were surrounded by craggy peaks. Two of the days there was some snow during the day but clear before and after. Something about those crisp pointy mountains contrasting against intensely blue skies really gets me. On the flip side, though, the snowy day served a friendly reminder that I despise snowboarding in white-out conditions…it feels like careening blindly down a mountain, which I suppose it is! Probably reasonable that I’m not a fan. The other crazy weather situation was the wind one day was so bad that it was actually pushing me UPHILL at the top of the mountain. I had to get on my hands and knees and sort of army crawl (snowboard style) to where it was steep enough that I could actually move. I’ve never been in wind like that — and yet the lifts were still open!!!
Sadly the Dolomites (and I think the Alps, and even the Sierras and Rockies) have not gotten much snow this year, so while there was a little snow on the ground in town, and it was cold, the snow on the mountain was primarily man-made. However, it being our first time here honestly this did not detract from our experience at all and the mountains were so large that there was plenty to enjoy exploring.
The food was incredible. Our best meal was at Semola Fina, which despite their poor use of google translate for their web page, was incredible. They only have a few tables and do a tasing menu, and we almost had to roll home. While food on the mountain/at ski resorts is typically terrible, here people were drinking full bottles of nice champagne and having full fancy meals at the midday break. We basically ate pizza every day for lunch, on the mountain, and it was hands down the best pizza almost ever. But it was difficult to go wrong with food here. Just maybe 50 meters up from our hotel was [surprise!] a pizza place that looked honestly rather trashy from the outside. Inside it was gorgeous and the pizza and some sort of burrata/egg/truffle appetizer were incredible. We went back a second night. At our hotel the lovely aged waitress sang as she worked and charmingly said “please” instead of “you’re welcome” while plying us with free bar snacks and red wine. Après ski is one of my favorite things.
It was difficult not to notice that only approximately 6 people worked at the entire hotel (it wasn’t a huge hotel, but average-sized!) and apparently 24 hours a day. The same staff was always at the front desk, serving dinner, serving breakfast, and driving the shuttle to and from the lift (it was close but not super fun walking up hill with an 8-year-old in her ski boots). Sally and I also made the most of enjoying the pool every day after we got back from the slopes.
The town has loads of trails around it. I explored on on snow shoes with a guided group and then another day I took the lower trail by myself. The trail went past the most insane icicles I have ever been around. At that point I turned around because the trail was sheer ice and I pictured the headlines, “American woman naively explores icy trail without equipment by herself, falls to slow death.” It didn’t seem worth it.
The detail that most in contrast to skiing/snowboarding in North America was the line-situation. It is going to sound like I am exaggerating but I am not. Instead of creating lift lines, they all just bunch up at the entrance to the lift and then climb over each other until they get onto the lift. It is absolutely insane. People push and skis go over skis and one dude even got his snowboard stuck on my back binding because he was trying to push across my snowboard. No one says “scusi” or “sorry” or even makes eye contact. It ends up working out, everyone gets on the lift, but there are issues: 1) you have to be in fierce mode and pay attention the entire time or you’d never get to the lift 2) it’s difficult to stay with the person you are with, let alone more than 1 person 3) because there are no lift workers (except one dude standing near the stop button), suddenly around the lift itself everyone is shy and often the lifts only go up half full b/c no one fills in to ride together. I learned to breath and adapted and was crowding with the best of them by the last day.
Finally, there’s not a separate ski school line, so the kids, no joke, just push past everyone to the front. We were flabbergasted.
The lines for food inside are similar. This line situation made it clear to me why these resorts couldn’t open in Europe last year like they did in the states. Social distancing would be impossible given these aforementioned quirks.
Finally, they also just leave their skis literally anywhere, in position for immediate clicking in and departure (gotta get to those lifts, after all). It is such a mess!
The last morning we left early for the airport so were treated to watching the crescent moon and Venus set over the mountains and the sun striking them anew. It would have been a completely perfect drive except that David seemed to learn how to drive in Italy from watching Jason Statham in The Italian Job (his joke, not mine), so I was white-knuckled and nauseous the entire time. Very safe, but quick…he actually managed to shave almost 15 minutes off the google maps time, which is usually pretty accurate.
We also flew over the town again on our way home, which was so fun to see from the air!
What fun in Italy! So beautiful!