Ski the Italian Alps — During the Olympics!

GO NORTH, YOUNG SKIER
North of Olympic-host Piemonte, wedged up between the French and Swiss borders, is the tiny Italian region of Valle d'Asota. It's little more than a wide valley of castle-topped hills, lushly farmed lowlands, and houses roofed with dragon-sale lose (massive stone tiles). The capital city, Aosta, still preserves much of its ancient Roman walls, gates, and theater, and the biggest yearly event is the October "Battle of the Cows" (a bit like bovine Greco-Roman wrestling). In short: this is rural Alpine Italy at its most picturesque.

More to our purposes, this east-west valley is hemmed in to the south by the 13,400-foot Gran Paradiso massif (now part of a national park), and to the north by a string of famous Alps strung along the Swiss border: Monte Rosa (15,302 feet), the Matterhorn (which the Italians call Monte Cervino; 14,777 feet), the Grand St. Bernard Pass (only 8,148 feet, but its resident S&R monks once bred a famously fluffy dog), and finally, marking the spot where Italy ends and France begins, the highest point in Europe: Monte Bianco (15,863 feet).

And you can ski them all.

Not only that but, unlike in Piemonte, there are still plenty of hotel rooms to be had all across the Valle d'Aosta — and with everyone focusing their attention on the Olympic area, I'll bet the slopes up here will be a bit emptier than usual.

Best of all, the Valle d'Asota is just a 90-minute drive from Turin and two to three hours away from the Olympic Alpine resorts. You could easily come for a mid-February week to spend some days on the slopes yourself and other days attending Olympic events. Who knows? You might even pick up a few pointers to improve your form. For more on how to get tickets to the Olympics, click here.

SKIING THE BORDERS, BABY
There are ski lifts and back country opportunities galore around the Valle d'Aosta, but to get the most out of your Alpine ski vacation, head for one of the biggest concentrations of facilities.

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The ski terrain around Monte Rosa is actually made up of seven interlinked resorts spread across three parallel valleys, making skiing these 112 miles of runs a lot more fun and engaging that your typical US resort (yo-yoing up and down from lodge to peak and back again), and the perfect example of that old-school European village-to-village ski experience.

The modern resort set halfway up the Italian side of the Matterhorn/Monte Cervino is called Breuil-Cervinia, featuring 87 wildly popular (i.e.: overcrowded) miles of slopes. Still, this is the Matterhorn, and if you can add in the frankly prettier Zermatt ski area on the Swiss side—easy to do with a cable-car/chairlift combo—the total skiable territory jumps to 217 miles.

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The vast, linked resort areas of La Thuile and La Rosiere spread around the Little St. Bernard Pass on the Valle d'Asota's western edge, offering a combined 93 miles of runs and lots of southern sun (which means the best skiing here is in the morning).

Then there's the biggie, Mont Blanc itself and the chichi resort town of Courmayeur at its feet. There's actually not that much in the way of formal, groomed skiing on the Italian side of Europe's highest peak—just 26 runs spread over 22 miles. But grab a professional guide and you can cruise the Valée Blanche—one of the world's longest skiable glaciers—in a day that takes you by cable car, ski, and train from Courmayeur on the Italy side to Chamonix in France (€55/$65 for the guide service, plus €39/$46 for the various forms of transportation).

A single day's ski pass at any one resort area in the region will set you back about €30 to €35 ($35 to $41)—though the longer you ski, the lower the per diem. There are also all sorts of multi-day passes combining neighboring ski areas, including some that jump the international borders—such as Breuil-Cervinia plus Zermatt  (from €42/$50 a day), or both sides of Monte Bianco/Mont Blanc (from €99/$117 for three days)—as well as mega-passes covering every ski area in the entire Valle d'Asota (from €99/$117 for three days).

The height of the ski season is January through mid-March. In most places you can get discounts—along with far fewer crowds—both pre-season (before December 18) and during spring skiing (after April 3). Get all the nitty-gritty, plus trail maps, snow and weather reports, and other practical news at www.skivalle.it.

Bio: Reid Bramblett is a guidebook author and the creator of the travel planning site ReidsGuides.com. He is currently working on sections of the new Pauline Frommer's Guide to Italy, including the Turin and Piemonte chapter.

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