Hi,

I am trying to work out my christmas/new year holiday. I will be travelling w/ my husband from London and we figured that since everywhere in Europe will be cold,we might as well just go skiing. However, we are both beginners, and I realize that I would be bored to spend 7 days in "ski school", so I am looking for a place where there are actually cities and places to visit nearby... Doest that exist?? I was planning maybe to visit Venice, Milan and then head to a ski area in the Piemont area for another 4 days (not sure this is feasable though) or try to find a place where I would have other things to do and other places to visit. I've never been skiing in Europe, so any help and opinions you give me is trully , really, mostly appreciated!!! Also, it would be nice if at new years eve we could be somewhere w/ nice music/restaurant to celebrate the new year!!! Thanks a lot for all your help in advance! Cheers, Juliana.

Juliana - If you're planning on including Venice, why not consider a few days skiing in the Dolomites instead of Piemonte?

Much better scenery - and plenty of options for non-skiing days too.

My suggestion would be Ortisei/ Val Gardena. Have are some views:

http://www.valgardena.it/eng/page182.html

www.valgardena.it

Hope this helps ...

Steve

It does help and I'll check it out. Thanks again Steve (as you see,I took the morning to plan all my holidays...)

We skied the Val Gardena area last year and I would enthusiastically second Steve's recommendation. The scenery is fantastic and the area provides easy day trips to Bolzano and Innsbruck. We stayed in Selva because it has better access to the Sella Ronda circuit, but I would agree that Ortisei is probably a better base for beginners because of easier access to the Alpe di Siusi area, a high very scenic plateau of smooth, wide and gentle beginner runs. If you improve to something nearer to intermediate status you can still access the Sella Ronda - one of the great ski routes in the Alps - from Ortisei. We've skied many different areas and countries in the Alps over the last several years and Val Gardena is right at the top of the "must return" list.

Don't think it's likely that I'll ever move from "beginners" stage - will keep my focus on Ortisei!!! Thanks!!