Livigno

A snowHead

Here's my little review of Livigno.
The first place to start is the transfer. I'd heard it was five hours, but to be honest it was four and a half with a half hour stop in Tirano.
All in all, not too bad. The secenery is stunning and you get to drive past Lake Como.
The skiing in my opinion is decent if a little limited. All the nursery slopes are at resort level and tend to be quite short.
There is also a distinct lack of cruisy blues, so beginners don't have much to progress to. One or two of the reds are easy enough to take a day four beginner down though.
For the intermediate there is an abundance of good reds, although again a little on the short side for me. Can't comment on the expert terrain as I'm not one.
I should also point out I'm more used to skiing at the french mega resorts so my views may be a little clouded by this.
The grooming was first class though, and I never came accross any moguls. I only came down two of the blacks and to be honest they were so well bashed that I would class them more as a difficult red. I'd like to point out that i don't like bumps...
The maps however were very poor. There seemed to be two versions of the piste map. One had a differing view on the grading of one or two of the runs, and even where they went too!
The bus map was even worse. All this map needed was to have the lifts marked on it. Instead it just had the name of the stop.
These seemed to correspond to hotels and bars along the route. Not much use if you don't know the layout of the place and you're trying to look out for a particular lift to stop at.
Without doubt the worst aspect of the whole trip though was the Galle Fedele ski school at the Doss 18 ski lift.
Two of our group went into a beginners class. The class they were in started off with fourteen people reducing down to twelve after a couple of days due to injuries.
To be quite frank I was astonished. There is no way you can adequately instruct fourteen people in two hours. The attitude of the instructor was also quite poor. He spoke very little English, and every day at 11:30 he left the group, regardless of where they were, to meet up with his next class. Now this is just negligent. Some of the class were quite timid and had to be helped down by the quicker learners in the class.
I couldn't in all honesty recommend this ski school. Well over half the class had no tution whatsoever apart from of the follow me variety. They had no instruction on how to get on and off a chair lift, which resulted in a holiday ending injury.
On a more positive note the booze and food was very cheap. We tended to stay in so I can't comment on night time frivolities or venues.
Favourite mountain restaurant was at the top of the Motolino bubble car. Huge, very well appointed and decent food.
Any questions, feel free to ask.

Cheers
Mark

A snowHead

Thanks, for your efforts Mark. Me and the other half will definitely steer clear of Galle Fedele the week after next,

Cheers,

Clive

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

Our second skiing holiday was to Livigno and we found the ski school we were booked into dreadful. They took everyone up to the top of a small hill and got everyone to ski down, those who fell over were in the beginners class, those that didn't were in the intermediate class, it was total carnage!!

I am surprised I am still skiing after that holiday as I learnt nothing and was very fed up by the end of it, if it wasn't for the huge glasses of Baileys each night it would have been a disaster Very Happy

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Long time lurker, first time poster.
Hi all,
We were in Livigno at the end of January this year. It was my first time skiing ever and I am now completely hooked Very Happy

Two of us were beginners, so ended up in the Galle Fedele ski school at the Doss 18 ski lift.
There must have been about 14 in our group at the start, though as each day passed there seemed to be at least one less person. What surprised me was the 'do or die' attitude, you just had to carry on whether you knew what you were doing or not. Luckily after the third day it had clicked with me, but there were others who were finding it much more difficult to pick up but due to the size of the group no one was getting the attention that they actually needed. The people who were finding it tough were still brought to the very top of the slope in spite of the fact that they had not really picked up the basics. Those who had advanced more as the days went on were not really able to get the attention that they deserved either ad so were held back to a certain extent.
The instructor himself was quite good. I really couldn't fault this teaching technique, it was just due to the massive size of the group that he was unable to give each individual the personal attention that they required.
Being a newbie I took it that this was the same set-up in all resorts, i.e. that the groups are always massive, the instructor wont have time to concentrate on individuals, and you just have to keep up regardless of you ability. Is this not the case i other areas?

Cormie

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

cormid80,

Welcome to snowHead

s

Its a good 15 years since I was at Livigno. but I certainly recognise the large group size.

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can totally agree with galli ski school....used it on my first year skiing and even have a video of my instructor skiing backwards in front of me on my first small slide down. he stopped....... still on the slope.....looked at me....shook his head.....and preceded to walk back up to the group leaving me facing down the slope with no idea!!!! looking at the video its hilarious now but it certainly wasn't at the time and luckily hubby was taking it so rescued me.......we never used them again and went over to top club at the bottom of the mottolino....they have taught us all to ski and would recommend them to everyone who goes

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Livigno

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