Oh yeah, about the skiing… it’s fabulous! Staying in Valtournenche offers you easy access to three world-class resorts, Valtournenche, Breuil-Cervinia, and Zermatt. All three are conveniently connected. Nearest to the Hotel Bijou, Valtournenche offers 7 lifts (T- and J-bars are included in Italy), 15+ runs, and endless expanses of snow. Unlike the resorts of Lake Tahoe in California I grew up on, there are no trees to define the edges of trails here, and instead, the width of each run is decided by the stinginess or generosity of the guy who drove the snow groomer that morning.

If you were to go for a week-long ski trip, Valtournenche, with its spectacular vistas of beautiful rock formations, the fog-shrouded Valle del Cervino below, and the towering Alps all around, would be the place to ski on the first day to find your groove and to get acquainted with Italian ski conditions, and the place to ski for the afternoon of the last day to ensure that you left the Alps on a good note. For the most difficult runs here would be considered only solid intermediates in the States.

The big brother of Valtournenche, Breuil-Cervinia, skirts the backside of Cervino, which is how the Italians lovingly refer to the Matterhorn. This huge resort offers nearly 200 km of trails, dozens of lifts and gondolas, around 60 runs, access to Switzerland, and absolutely stunning views of said Matterhorn and the adjacent peaks.

A Scotsman I met over lunch on the mountain noted, “Italians like to look good while they ski. They’re all about the style, and far less concerned about the difficulty of the runs they go down. They like to stick to the perfectly groomed stuff, and tend to stay on-piste far more than say, the French.” Breuil-Cervinia is a testament to this Italian ski philosophy, with its infinite supply of perfectly groomed snow, and countless numbers of highly skilled Italians carving their way down the slopes.

Thanks to ever-present glacial snow, skiing takes place at Breuil-Cervinia year-round, though it would be hard to beat skiing there on a bright, sunny day in January when the snow is deep and everything is breathtakingly white. The elevation at the top of the lifts here reaches around 13,000 feet, and with runs that offer vertical drops pushing 4,000 feet, 30-minute chases from top to bottom are not uncommon. Moreover, a plethora of privately-run ski chalet restaurants serving delicious local fare dot the mountain, though be warned, after you have eaten at these places, you will never be able to look at that overcooked, formerly frozen patty of gray meat, that is so often the standard lunch at U.S. resorts, the same way again.

The third and final jewel of this alpine triple crown is world-renowned Zermatt in Switzerland. Accessible by hiking, biking, or a number of roads in summer, Zermatt is (with the exception of one or two long mountain tunnels), only accessible from Italy in winter by skiing. Undoubtedly, Zermatt showcases the most spectacular views and skiing of the bunch, for whereas you ski in the shadow of the Matterhorn at Breuil-Cervinia, you ski on the Matterhorn at Zermatt. Awe-inspiringly stunning views of the Gornergletscher (the scale of which cannot be done justice in a photograph), Mount Rose, and of course, the Matterhorn, as well as spectacular, though hair-raising gondola flights 400-500 feet above jagged cliffs and the chamois that call them home, make the skiing seem like an afterthought, though the wonderfully long runs (read: 40-minute journeys), trails that are surprisingly manageable, and perfect snow conditions, all serve to remind you why you came to Zermatt in the first place.

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