Virgin territory for me - Cervinia

I am off to Cervinia next weekend, 24 Jan, and I have done the usual due diligence and read up about the skiing. Obviously excited about skiing over to Zermatt, seeing the Matterhorn (and taking numerous photos no doubt), as well as the current snow conditions which appear to be very good indeed.

However, other than what I have read in WTSS, I know nothing of the runs, resort, bars and restaurants, and I would welcome any advice or recommendations on all topics.

I am staying in the club med, which is I understand a short walk from town and the Plan Maison lifts. I really don't want to wait until Club Med start their minibus shuttles to the lifts as my past experience of this in St Moritz was something ridiculous like 9.30-10am, and I want to be on the first lift up when it opens, so this may involve a brisk walk I guess?

Thanks in advance for anyone who can offer a review or suggestions from experience.

Oh yeah - do we really still need to take passports with us to go across into Switzerland????

Well am pretty sure you are going to love it, should be the European default for early skiing. Mountain is super easy to navigate and everything is nice fall line skiing. Great place to improve your skiing. For someone who rarely eats on the mountain the food there was a revelation vs a lot of European resorts. Affordable and well worth taking an HR out of your day for. No idea where club med is but nothing is very far from a lift as pretty small. Enjoy.

Haven't been to Cervinia since 1982 so not sure any intelligence I can pass on would be sufficiently up-to-date. But I do remember it as a cruising mountain par excellence, the Ventina is a memorable high speed blast and the run down to Valtournenche was good fun!

Haven't been there but it is high on my possibilities list for future trips.

Just be careful when going over to Zermatt. I read an hilarious article in one of the papers a couple of years ago about a journalist and his son who missed the last lift back onto the Cervinia side on New Years Eve. The son had gone ahead and had missed a turn they needed to take to get a particular lift up to the top. By the time, they skied down to the bottom and tried to get back up, the link was closed. They skied down into Zermatt to discover that a taxi back to Cervinia would take hours and cost several hundred pounds. Faced with this information, they decided to stay overnight but it being New Year's Eve everywhere was full. Eventually some hotel manager took pity on them and found them a bed in the staff quarters :oops: . Meanwhile, his wife and daughter were on their own in Cervinia. I don't think she was very pleased with them :shock:.

Obviously, they would have had no clothes or shoes with them. Don't remember how they managed that problem - would have been very expensive to buy anything in Zermatt.

Anyway, enjoy your trip. I look forward to reading your report and seeing your photos which I am sure will be up to your usual standard :wink:. Just watch out for lift closures on your trips over to Zermatt :roll:.

Been to Zermatt twice in the last couple of years (see a report I did in the Switzerland section of the forum). We've skied over into Cervinia 4 times. Very poor conditions in March 14 due to high temperatures - quite a few of the slopes face south and were suffering badly in the sun. However, they should be great this time of the year. We enjoyed Cervinia more in December 14.

The no. 1 red down to Salette and then on to Valtournenche is a great run. We enjoyed the other reds over here as well. The only real downside of this side of the mountain is the need to get a fairly unpleasant button lift (with steep patches) to allow a transition across to Plan Maison etc. Otherwise it's presumably a bus from Valtournenche to Cervinia central. The blues above Plan Maison and a lot of the reds as well are very easy runs (greens and blues really) and are often packed with beginners so perhaps not the most fun unless you pick a quieter week (Tony - you will probably be ok for the week you are going). The no. 7 red from Plateau Rosa Testa Grigia can be tricky - it was busy and mogulled when we skied it. There are a couple of really slow chairs above Plan Maison to watch out for. We had one good and one poor lunch in Cervinia. The good one was in the restaurant where pistes 7.0, 37 and 39 converge. I think the bad one was in Plan Maison....

Be very careful about skiing down into the depths of Zermatt later in the day. It takes quite a long time to get back up to the top to cross over back into Cervinia. The telecabin up to the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise can often be shut in poor weather and we've also experienced long queues here (by far the worst in Zermatt). It's possible to get up to the Plateau Rose via drag lifts across the Zermatt glacier but it doesn't look much fun.

To get over to the Sunnegga, Riffelberg and Gornergrat areas of Zermatt requires a telecahin or bubble down to Furi at 1867m or a ski down into Furi via black 62 or a couple of reds. The bottom section is pretty flat though which is a bit of a turn off. Black 62 is a great run (unless it's icy and then it's hard work!). We enjoyed the skiing above Sunnegga and there are some great views here across towards the Matterhorn particularly from the Rothorn cafe.

The whole area is pretty vast and would keep even the most energetic skier happy for a week.

If any of your party struggles with altitude bear this in mind at the top of Zermatt as this is 3883m. If ok it's worth going up the lift and stairs to the viewing platform if the weather is clear. Again. mega views.

Food was generally very good all through Zermatt (town and mountain). Very expensive though....

Any other questions let me know.

By the way, we didn't see anyone inspecting passports when we crossed from Cervinia to Zermatt!

Cervinia is a lovely resort. The skiing is tame but with the recent snow fall there should be plenty of good opportunities for handy off piste skiing close to the piste. As mentioned earlier if you are skiing in Zermatt it's best to go early in the day and plan on making your way back early afternoon. I found the food excellent and very cheap in the mountain restaurants. There is a small restaurant tucked away just off Red 7 half way down from Plateau Rossa, I can't remember the name but we had the most amazing food there a couple of times. Be mindful of the wind, a lot of the higher lifts and the link to Zermatt can be closed due to wind.
Have a great time.

The Club Med hotel is nearly 100m above the village and about 1km from the Plan Maison lifts so it's a bit more than a short walk. Piste 16 (Cieloalto) passes close by so getting down to the lifts for opening time shouldn't be a problem.

As others have mentioned the skiing on the Italian side is pretty easy, it's a carvers paradise. Most of the restaurants serve good to excellent food, Chalet Etoile, Hotel Principe Delle Nevi, The Bontadini (launch pad toilets) and the Foyer Des Guides on the piste down to Valtourneche are all well worth a visit.

The link to Zermatt is often closed due to high winds at this time of year, they only open it if they can keep it open for the whole day. The runs from the top down to Zermatt and Cervinia are some of the longest in the alps, it's 21km from the Kleine Matterhorn down to Zermatt with a vertical height difference of 2,279 metres, so allow plenty of time to get back. It takes 25mins to get from the bottom station up to Trockener Steg and about the same again to Testa Grigia using the drag lifts, there are often long queues for the cable car up to the Kleine Matterhorn so I nearly always take the drags. I'm not certain, but the quickest way back from the Sunnegga sector might be to take the Funicular down to the village and the free bus to the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise gondola. The GBP / CHF exchange rate has taken a turn for the worse lately so lunch will be very expensive. The food in the self service restaurants isn't that good, but the food in the Findlerhof, Zum See, Chez Vrony and Paradies is excellent.

You don't really need your passport, but it would be good idea to take it and your EHIC, just in case something unfortunate happens.

In order to make the most of Zermatt you could spend a night in the guides hut at Testa Grigia http://www.rifugioguidedelcervino.com/index.asp good food and a surprisingly good wine list for somewhere above 3000m.

The weather is forecast to be mostly sunny but very cold (-20°C) next week.