Cervinia Italy

A snowHead

Looking like the chosen destination for next year is Italy

Cervinia, staying at the Hotel Petit Parlais

Leaving first week in Feb

Going with 4 snowboarders Embarassed

and 3 skiers (inc me)

Anybody have any experiences from that part of the world.

A snowHead

Usually very snowsure.

Wide open easy pistes cervinia side.

More challenging stuff over in Zermatt, but a bit of a trek.

Would go there again.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Skiied over there whilst staying in Zermatt a couple of years back. Yes, indeed, lots of long runs, above the tree line including a 14 klms run down to Valtourneche. Worth going over to Zermat for a day, as it has very good skiing, but make sure that you get back to the top lift before it closes otherwise a very expensive taxi ride back to Cervinia. Also take your passport.

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Be very very careful coming back into Cervinia from the top lift at the end of the day if there's a white-out ... or you'll end up like me... happily skiing out of the white-out and thinking "uh-oh... this looks like Zermatt, *not* Italy"... ski like a total loony back down to the cable car... ooops last one of the day missed... don't want to pay for a taxi, don't want to stay overnight in Zermatt because I was on holiday with my mother and she'd only spend the whole night panicking... so your only option is to take the drag lift... I forget how long this is - 3km? 4km? wow! thigh burner! Shocked

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Renry, am going as well in January and the comments above some it up from my research. I am going to start another thread as I need to get myself to the hotel (not same as yours) from geneva and the hotel has quoted 337 euros....one way!

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Peter Leuzzi, you can hire a car for far less for a whole week.

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Helen Beaumont, thats what I am thinking too, hence the idea of driving and leaving the car. we are only away for 4 days. It just gets down to how long is the journey?

After all it is free

Peter Leuzzi, I wouldn't worry too much. www.viamichelin.com puts it at 2.5hrs throught the Mont Blanc Tunnel. We use this site all the time for directions. and it is usually fairly accurate with it's journey times. You can also change the date of travel to take account of winter weather, planned roadworks etc. Hire the car, and drive to the resort, it won't be that bad. I wouldn't feel happy leaving a car somewhere that I couldn't keep an eye on it.

I stayed at the Petit Palias back in 2003.

Nice enough hotel excellently placed right by the gondala station.

Its a Crystal Club hotel and as a result all of the staff are British which took away the Italian feel from the holiday for me. Nice enough food i seem to remember but the afternoon cakes were fabulous!

We also did the Snowmobile excersion which was great fun.

Anythink alse specifically you wanting to know?

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My recollection of a day there many years ago is very flattering motorways with excellent snow and trying to use a squat in ski boots and salopettes.

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

We went to Cervinia this easter and stayed at the Petit Palais. Really good location, a couple of hundred metres downhill to the gandola/cable car station and you can ski back at night via a small track.
just a couple of points though, the transfer coach will probably drop you off in the car park in the cantre of Cervinia (your bags go up to the hotel in a van, you walk) and the food this year was variable. Not bad, but I think they were just trying too hard to do a 'fancy' menu and it just didn't quite work.
A good hotel though and a great place to ski with some good mountain restaurants. We would definately go back again.
ps try the Tea Room in the village for cakes, coffee and drinks.

snow reports

I've been a few times to Cervinia. LOADS of runs which if the weather's ok will take you an age to explore (incuding Zermatt and the glacier). Looks like they're building a further chair lift from Cretaz at village level. Anyone got any info on this? There's a few pics on www.cervinia.it Very Happy

Its a great venue, enjoy..i

f the weather turns and you're on the Zermatt side then get you back bottom up the lifts pronto, they have a habit of shutting the cable car upto the kleine matterhorn, which means that the only way home is the drags..these are a mare if you are a boarder and dont do drags, but note if you fall of about 1/2 the way upt the upper one you can ski down and turn left and go over the theodolpass and bob's you're uncle. Likewise the only route out of the valtourneche valley involves a drag which is a bummer.

tips
The black off the back of furg down to furi can be quite amusing / tough depending on the snow conditions and number of punters.
As you come down to Furi the second restaurant on the left is wicked - one with the 'traditional unifoms' does great rotti
restaturants on the swiss side will aceept euros but pay you back in swiss francs, pain in the back bottom on the last day..
The italian bars a now "smoking forbidden" which rocks and actually seemed to be followed by the Italians..(no chance in france!)

You know it makes sense.

Liked the skiing and the apres (on the one day I was there so dont take this as any informed comment) but there seemed to be an hell of a lot of stairs in the base building to get to the gondola and it was a long way up. On mountain food was v good as I recall. The Italian clientele had a very relaxed approach to the skiing day. The deck chairs went out about 11, lunch was later and the ski down was about 3-3.30. I dont remember the slopes being that busy between 12 and 3.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

A snowHead

Thats the hotel in the photo above. You come out the front door, turn left, walk down the road about 100m, go down some steps and you are at the gondola station. We usually took the gondola up as opposed to the cable car although that was more timing than anything else. If I remember, you can leave your skis and boots at the top station if you dont want to ski back down.

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Renry - seems like all the comments above are good, so I thought that I'd through this in (not trying to bout a downer on it - just to give another opinion). Here goes........... Evil or Very Mad

we were there this year at the end of january - the snow was pretty poor (the reason we went there was the better chance of snow) - the beginners enjoyed it though because they had a couple of good runs. Even when I got some private lessons the ski instructor was saying that the snowfall at the time was much lower then normal - only about half of the runs were open and even at this they were not in great condition. There was one blue run from the top of the main Gondola to the bottom which had alot of grass on it!!!!!
That said some of the people that were with us had been there 2 years earlier and they said that they had great snow - they went at the start of February aswell - so hopefully the skiing conditions will be better for you than they were for us!

One final thing - some of the group this year stayed in the Petit Palais - the accomodation was nice, but on the third night everyone complained about the food (and I mean everyone) - each table took it in turns going up to the manager saying that it was not good enough and that if it was not sorted out by the next meal they would be looking for a refund. As it happed the next night there was a night off for the dinners - this had been scheduled in the original plan. On the 5th night there the food had improved drastically - so a bit of advice if the food is not upto standard don't be afraid to complain.

I don't mean to put you off the place Little Angel

- just thought that you might like the input. On a final note - I would have no hassle going back there - it's great that you can ski into Zermatt - if all the runs are open in Cervinia you would be pushed to cover both resorts in 1 week. Very Happy

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The new lift from Furi to Riffelberg looks very useful if you're staying in Cervinia. It means you can get over to the Gornergrat/Sunnegga/Rothorn areas of Zermatt without having to go down to the village and take the bus to the Sunnegga Express. Particularly since the international pass from Cervnia now covers all the Zermatt skiiing, not just the Klein Matterhorn area as it used to. We were in Cervinia in late December last year and I spent most of my time on the Zermatt side, since most of the Cervinia pistes were closed from lack of snow and you couldn't even get over to Valtournenche. This was, however, the worst snow I've seen there in 15 years or so: usually it's pretty good, though wind can be a problem (that's lift-closing wind, not flatus (though I suppose that could close lifts too)).

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

I was there in early December a couple of years ago, and even though the town was empty and the snow was non-existent down there, the high-altitude stuff was fab - especially the runs over the top just going onto the Swiss side of the map

We did a long weekend from Turin airport - sensational stuff

you'll have a blast!

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I was there in a big group in March. The slopes on the Cervinia side are pretty easy, but still great fun - try the long run down to Valtournach - superb. Without doubt the better skiing is out of Zermatt, so I'd recommend you try out those slopes early on the holiday and leave the easy stuff for when you're knackered at the end of the week. As Alexandra notes... look out for the very long drag in white-out conditions... scary stuff! Enjoy your trip, you'll love it (Copa Pan for drinks in the evening).

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I have to say I'm amazed at the positive views on here about Cervinia ,, I've been there 3 or 4 times for weekends (don't ask me why) and I am not in a hurry to go back .... the town is pretty boring and the skiing is distinctly average - kind of high and windswept like some of the French resorts without the variety or amount of runs. Zermat seems better but the ski areas that side are a bit separated and they're along trip back to Cervinia.

After all it is free

Cervinia is pretty sunny, has wide swooping runs, and pretty good vertical.

I found some of the lifts (and drags) to be a little old fashioned, particularly
on the Valtourneche loop. Some of the runs there can not be skiied out of
without taking a tiresome Poma, which is not obvious when you started
down the run.

It is a great place for fast skiing and mid level skiiers. Better skiiers can
try Zermatt for a day, but it really uses up a lot of travel time, and is more
of a thing to try to say you did it, rather than something to really enjoy.

Zermatt's skiing is hard to get to (except for Klein Matterhorn) from Cervinia.

Help!!

Cervinia Italy

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