Via Lattea

Do you want to ski with one foot in Italy and the other in France? The poetic-sounding La Via Lattea (Milky Way) lies right in the borderland between these two countries at Serre Chevalier Vallée, high up in the Alps. The large and varied ski area includes San Sicario, Pragelato, Cesana and Clavier, the Olympic villages of Sestrière and Sauze d'Oulx (during the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, the alpine events were held here) as well as the French ski area Montgenévre. It is worth remembering that the Italian-French ski system is not always 100 percent coherent, because snow is needed down in the valleys. Covers over 248,5 miles of skiing, around 250 scenic slopes and over 70 lifts. With everything from blue and red carving slopes to steep black skiing, the varied terrain and difficulty level is enough to run out of most ski bugs sooner or later. For example, the snow-sure ski mecca of Sestrière is synonymous with beautiful forest skiing.