Italy 

POINT OF VIEW
By Bob Dever

Since European skiing is for most of us a planned vacation, and in many cases a life-long dream, we go to places we know and read about. We all know their names - Chamonix, Courchevel, St. Moritz, St. Anton, etc., -- ski areas with fabulous mountains, great PR programs, and, in many cases, an Olympic or World Cup history.

The internationally known resorts are famous for a reason -- they deliver the goods when it comes to winter sports. But Europe is overrun with ski areas and many of the lesser known resorts have the vertical and the terrain we all crave, even though their names may be relatively unfamiliar.

One of these is the Espace San Bernardo Italia and the La Thuile ski area.

The truth is that I had never heard of this place. We were skiing in Courmayeur on the Italian side of Mt. Blanc, or Mt. Bianco if you’re in Italy, and were advised to try this local area. We took a 25-minute ride on a city bus, at a round-trip cost of five euros, and arrived in a ski area parking lot that had one gondola and one chair lift. We weren’t exhalted or disappointed by the two lifts. We didn’t know what we were in for and we had no expectations whatsoever.. Wow, were we surprised.

A one-euro-per-day locker gave us a place to store street shoes and a 33-euro lift ticket got us onto to the gondola and up from La Thuile’s base altitude of 1,441 meters to over 2,000. We thought we were on our way to the top. Forget that - as we disembarked from the gondola we had lifts everywhere and another 1,600 feet of vertical in front of us. We skied a variety of groomed red and black runs and took the Chaz Dura lift to the top. We zigged when we intended to zag and suddenly faced a sign that said La Francia. We had departed Italy and were now in France, headed down to the French resort of La Rosiere

Espace San Bernardo encompasses both La Thuile and La Rosiere. We now had two towns covered by one lift ticket, 35 lifts with an uphill capacity of 54,000 people per hour, 61 marked trails, 150 kilometers of ski area, and 300 snowmaking machines, just in case Mother Nature fails to cooperate. We had off-piste available and we had crossed an international border.

Both of these towns are relatively small. A variety of accommodations are available in two and three star hotels and the 500-room, four star, Planibel Hotel and Residences sits 50 yards from the La Thuile base gondola. There is even a non-starred pine glade that sits 600 meters from the center of town that, for 11euros a night, has a “place for tent.” I don’t think so.

La Thuile itself has 24 restaurants and 23 bars. It has two rental ski shops and 24 commercial stores. Its located 200 kilometers from Milan and 130 kilometers from Geneva International airport via the Mt. Blanc tunnel.

The Espace San Bernardo is located in Italy’s Aosta Valley, a place where the locals say, “history lives on in the landscape.” There are Roman ruins, 14th century castles, and 16th century churches. There are baroque altars and examples of the golden era of rococo in some of the engravings and gilded statues. And there is a path, taken by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 994, on his way to Rome for investiture, that you can walk today.

Legend has it that Hannibal passed this way and Caesar almost certainly did. If they thought it was worth a stop you surely should.

Hannibal and Caesar did not have to buy llift tickets? We know, of course. that Hannibal, at least, had his own uphill transportation.