 Poster: A snowHead
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Its a bit of a hack from Munich but thanks to Brians post we have got reasonably priced flights to Munich and are thinking of the dolomites.
Two families totalling 4 kids and 4 adults hoping for a large appartment or two small ones next to each other. Has anyone any recommendations for the best skiing and the best access from Munich. We were thinking of Arabba but if there are not many appartments there where are the other good places?
We will have a car so can travel a bit and don't mind staying in a village outside the main resort.
I have never been to the dolomites and all information is gratefully received.
Could a passing mod please put this into resorts where I meant to post it. 
Edited to thank the mod who repositioned this thread and all those who have replied so far.
Last edited by Poster: A snowHead on Fri 6-07-07 15:57; edited 1 time in total
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Actually I think I did exactly what T bar wants to do.
Two seasons ago I went skiing a weekend in Garmish Partenkirchen, then went to Munich to pick up my brother family, then drove to St Anton to ski there for a week, then took them back to Munich airport to see them off, then drove to Dolomites to ski there for a week.
I saw off my brother family off in the morning so got plenty time to drive to Dolomites. It is motorway all the way. Munich was pretty bad as it is possibly the only city with "decent" traffic jams in Germany. Road to Austria can also be busy until you pass the Brenner pass. I highly recommend to lunch in the restaurant after passing the high Europabrucke bridge (was the highest in Europe until France opened the Millau Bridge recently) because the view is truly stunning there.
We stayed in Santa Chrintina which is linked to Val Gardena uphill and Ortisei downhill. On the map Val Gardena is the biggest in Sella Ronda and should be the nearest from Munich too.
The Val Gardena skiing domain starts at Ortisei, then Santa Cristina before reaching Val Gardena. Ortisei area is big with skiing area on both sides of the valley. You can do a loop for a day there. There is a short walk across the Ortisei town centre which is pretty well integrated into the skiing domain. It is necessary to take a short bus trip to complete this loop and the bus ride, which is frequent, is also breath taking when the snow is heavy. The bus goes through deep snow on a single lane mountain track! The bus stops are next to the chairlifts so check the time and have another run. No need to waste on waiting time.
Val Gardena is also one of the 4 resorts linking the famous Sella Ronda circuit which IMO every serious skier must visit at least once. It is not a difficult circuit with mainly red and blue slopes but you go through the remaining 3 major resorts of Alta Badia, ArabbaVal and Di Fassa. You can also do it in opposite direction. Skiers able to do some red slopes could cover it in a day without much bother. There is no black run in the circuit loop.
All the above skiing areas are "linked" but we would park the car in Val Gardena to do the Sella Ronda, drove to Santa Christina to do the Ortisei circuit and go to Arabba or Alta Badia each for a day. There is so much to see and ski.
This part of the dolomites, which has 1200km piste in total, has only 510km piste and slightly smaller than the 600km 3 Vallees. However it has different attractions and big and grand in its own way. The scenery beats 3 Vallees hand down.
I suppose Dolomites isn't an easy place to get to from UK but if someone is willing to drive there from Munich he wouldn't be disappointed.
Last time I just surfed the Internet and booked a pension at the location easy for us to go up or down the valley. I think in a car it is a 10 to 15 minutes job to go from Ortisei to Val Gardena.
From description and confirmed by our observation the Alpe di Siusi area of Ortisei is specially catered for families (Italian style- well disciplined) and could make an excellent playground for a group with mix abilities. There are flat and runway size piste here.
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Not related to Dolomites but the wife and I carry a pair of PMR (Personal mobile radio or walkie talkie). It can be an excellent tool to stay in touch for a large group because you can have all 8 PRM, all tuned to the same frequency to maintain contact with each other. Or it can be a tool for dumping one group on one area and bug off to other area to play. UK sets are legal in the continent as we use the same frequency band to cover the 2 miles range when uninterrupted. For a longer range the USA/Canada sets can do 5 miles but they are not sold in UK.
The PRMs are excellent way of communicating between two traveling cars too.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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saikee, Gosh, I skied this area - staying in Orteisi - donkey's years ago, and have never been back because the snow has often seemed unsure. You really make me want to go back. The scenery, as you imply, is second to none. (I've walked in that area in the summer, too - very, very nice.) As a matter of interest, do the lifts link up properly these days? I have a vivid memory, from doing the Sella Ronda all those years ago, of getting off one lift and invariably having to walk uphill, or at least pole for a while, to the bottom of the next one. That was a bit annoying!
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Hurtle,
I believe there has been a sizable investment into the chairlift system making it one of the best around apparently. I did hear about the bad publicity of the chairlifts in the past. We went there in Mar 2006 and the snow was excellent. It was supposed to be the end of the peak time but I wouldn't say there was any queuing problem. The worst was possibly no more than 15 minutes say when one ski down from Val Gardena to Colfosco as I still have a video showing the wife skiing all the way to the queue ( I was holding the camera behind).
We were going from St Anton, where there are nice heated seat chairlifts to be had, but did not find any shortcoming in the Sella Ronda chairlift system which stood out very new, as some of them couldn't be 1 or 2 years old. If Sella Ronda management has any sense they would not skim the lift system there as one break down can strand a lot of skiers between the 4 valleys.
The Sella Ronda circuit is a major attraction there and it is always busy. We were a bit surprised to find it wasn't as crowded as we thought. Mind you with car we normally went up early and picked a quiet station, furthest away from the centre, to get up in the first few lifts and could be well into the other valley before the crowd built up in Val Gardena.
We quite like Sella Ronda. It is large enough to dissipate any crowd. It is well linked and there is a hub to go round.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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We went to Arabba last February - half term week. I had not skied there for about 8 years and was very pleased with the improvements that have been made to the lift system all around the area. Also the piste conditions were excellent considering how long it had been since it had snowed in anger.
Also have to say there were some queues at key pinch points on the sella ronda circuit but we soon caught on to the times to avoid. The only major queue was for the taxi/coach to get to the hidden valley and then the queue there for the cable car. But we left it too late in the morning to start that day.
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If you fly into Marco Polo Venice or Trevsio which is about 10k away from Marco Polo its about a 2.5 hr transfer to the Dolimites. There is a ski bus that runs from these airports to the main resorts and various holiday companies provide transfers as part of their deals.
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We could have overlooked the queue problem at Val Gardena for having a car at our disposal. As we need to park it so we have to go early to claim a space. The early we were the nearer we could position the car to the chairlift and so we tend to disappear early before the crowd could build up. Thus we didn't run into long queues.
The chairlift No. 31 right at the town centre of Selva Wolkenstein should be avoided. We actually drove to end of the piste from chairlift No. 31, which is just up a small hill and ski down, and parked at the godola station of Lift No. 30, which is what everybody from chairlift No. 31 must go to.
The mad period is only the starting point of the Sella Ronda circuit in the morning and lift No. 30 is the commencement point for the clockwise direction. The anticlockwise direction is less crowded possibly because the first downhill slope, which is red, is on the steep side. I got that impression because there seemed to be more than usual amount of skiers standing and observing at the top. Once passing the starting point the crowd thins away very quickly not really seen again in the rest of the circuit.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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I did not think there was a major problem at that chairlift. The only problem as I saw it was the walk up the steps of the bridge to cross the road. Then you had the gentle run down to the gondola to warm yourself up.
The area of most concern is getting back to Selva on the anti clockwise circuit. There was a major tailback at Corvara and Colfosco. VVVery nice area.
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