J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by AllyG

After a lot of discussion we have decided to go to Sauze d'Oulx, on 11th January 2015, for the next J2Ski group holiday.

20 of us who have been on a previous J2Ski group holiday have made a direct booking with the Sauze hotel.

There are 8 rooms still available in the Sauze hotel with Crystal, if anyone else is interested in coming with us. Their internet price is £535 per person for a shared twin/double room on half board, including return flights from Gatwick to Turin and transfers.

http://www.sauzehotel.com/

Or, if anyone wants to ski/board with us but doesn't want to stay in the Sauze, there are plenty of other hotels in the resort :)

Thanks very much BB :)
Lovely photos :)
I have thought about going to Zermatt but I decided it's too expensive :(

Thanks Wanderer :)
It was most interesting. You skied about twice as far each day as I did in Folgarida. And it's nice to know I'm not the only person who takes a wrong turn sometimes ...

I'm glad you had a good time Snapzzz :)
What did you think of the ski-ing in Sauze D'Oulx?

I thought I'd write something about the contrast between Tignes/Val d'Isere (where we went last year) and our recent group holiday in Folgarida/Madonna di Campiglio, for those people who may be considering going to either resort but haven't been before.

I reckon I had just as much fun on both holidays, but Folgarida is a real contrast to Tignes.

Geographically, Folgarida is in Italy in the Brenta Dolomites, at a much lower altitude to Tignes, and the lift and piste linked area is only half that of Tignes (150 Km versus 300 Km) so it's a much smaller resort.
Hence most of the pistes in Folgarida are tree lined whereas only a few of the lower ones are in Tignes. I should imagine it's for this reason that the pistes in Folgarida are generally much narrower than in Tignes. So when we were in Folgarida we had the curious experience where there were very few lift queues but the pistes were quite crowded, especially at bottle-necks like at a particularly difficult section of a red run. However, we were there during Polish half-term, and whilst there was a special lift pass discount, and when they had the best snow they've had for years - which may have had something to do with it! The slopes in Tignes, on the other hand, were practically deserted when we were there, with no lift queues at all. This was presumably because we were there in the middle of January. When I went back there at the beginning of March it was much more crowded.

The slopes are far easier in Folgarida than Tignes, and I should imagine that was why there seemed to be very few advanced or expert skiers/boarders in Folgarida. What I noticed was that in Tignes I was one of the worst on the slopes, whereas in Folgarida I was one of the best - so in Tignes I was continually being overtaken whereas in Folgarida I had to keep overtaking slower skiers and boarders. There was however plenty of challenging ski-ing in Folgarida - what with the powdery bumps, the crowded slopes, the poor visibility and the few difficult black slopes (like that unpisted black 70 one where we were the only people on it!). I think the advanced and expert skiers go to Folgarida for the off-piste ski-ing, and I saw some local Italians who were there for that on the final Sunday.

The ski lifts in both resorts are very good. The only time I went on a drag lift in Folgarida was on the slalom course. Most of the lifts are modern chairlifts (some with covers) and gondolas. There are a few old chairlifts, annoyingly positioned at the main links between Folgarida and Madonna di Campiglio. And in Tignes I can't remember going on a draglift, although there are a few up on the glacier.

Folgarida is a much cheaper resort than Tignes. It cost us around £150 less in Folgarida (£700 versus £850), for the flights, transfers, a week of half-board accommodation, ski hire, and lift passes for 6 days ski-ing. And the mountain restaurants are miles cheaper in Folgarida than Tignes, with much better quality food and drink. A cup of tea costs around 5 euros in Tignes, but only 1.60 euros in Folgarida. And you can buy a very good lunch for around 10 euros but it would cost at least 20 euros in Tignes.

There is less English spoken in Folgarida than in Tignes - presumably because not many British people go to Folgarida. This did make things slightly difficult for me in the ski hire shop (because I don't know any Italian) and I had a few awkward moments in the restaurants, plus it was harder making the hotel booking.

In both resorts we stayed in the cheaper, more peripheral villages. It is quite a long way from Tignes Les Brevieres to the glacier above Val d'Isere, and although we did manage it with time to ski on the glacier, have lunch, and come back, it does make for a long day. And in Folgarida it is likewise a long way/takes a long time to get from Folgarida to the ski-ing above Pinzolo. We would have been more central if we'd stayed in the far more expensive village of Madonna di Campiglio rather than Folgarida, and Le Lac (for example) rather than Les Brevieres. We were however trying to ski/board on a 'budget' and staying in a peripheral village is one way of doing this.

Folgarida is much harder to get to than Tignes, from the U.K. and this may be why not many British people go there. There are far fewer flights to Verona (the nearest airport to Folgarida) than there are to Geneva (which is not the nearest airport to Tignes but it's the one we were advised to use). And there is a similar problem with the transfer buses to Folgarida as compared with Tignes. It takes about 3 1/2 hours to get to Folgarida from Verona airport on the public bus, and about the same time to get to Tignes from Geneva airport on the bus. There are a few package holidays available to Folgarida but there are far more to Tignes.

One similarity between Tignes and Folgarida is that both ski areas are made up of different villages and it's nice because it gives you a sense of travelling when you go from one to another, and the landscape varies. I would say that Folgarida is prettier than Tignes, and it doesn't have the hideous apartment block architecture, but on the other hand it doesn't have the lake either. Both Val d'Isere and Madonna di Campiglio have their 'wealthy' skiers and fur coat brigades (I met some very smart ladies on the slopes in Madonna di Campiglio when the sun came out!)

Tignes is more snow-sure than Folgarida, because it has high altitude ski-ing and the glaciers, but the snow record for Folgarida is pretty good (I checked before we chose it!).

Folgarida felt like a very 'safe' resort, presumably because of the trees and the way it's sheltered from the wind and because the pistes are much easier than in Tignes. I didn't feel nervous ski-ing in poor visibility in the fog - there was no way I was going to fall over a precipice or get lost off piste. The pistes are very well marked (apart from that one section on black 70!) and if there is an 'edge' they fence it off with netting, and the signposting is really good so it's easy enough to find your way around. Tignes is a much more 'scary' place - with wide open pistes exposed to the wind and it would be very easy to find yourself 'off-piste' ski-ing there in the fog. Plus, the pistes in Tignes are much harder. It really did feel as though a red piste in Folgarida would be a blue in Tignes, and so on.

I think we were very lucky we'd picked a fairly low resort this time. I'm sure if we'd been in a high altitude resort a lot of the upper lifts would have been closed because of the avalanche risk as a result of the very heavy snowfall. As it was they only shut the top section of one gondola for a couple of days for this reason, and the rest of the resort was fully open and all the lifts opened on time in the morning.

As I said, I had just as much fun ski-ing in both resorts. In Tignes we skied much faster on steeper pistes and travelled far greater distances. In Folgarida we had to learn how to ski slower and more controlled in order to negotiate the powdery bumps and slower skiers/boarders. If I had a chance I'd be very happy to go back to either resort.

When we were in Folgarida I saw an instructor putting his whole class of little kids at risk. They looked like they were only 4 or 5 years old, on skis, and there was a long line of them following the instructor right across the piste, leaving only a tiny gap at one side.
What made things even worse was that it was very foggy and hard to see this line of small kids. I did have half a mind to tell the instructor how dangerous it was. But I thought he wouldn't appreciate my remarks, and very likely he wouldn't have been able to understand English anyway.
But at least I didn't flatten any of those poor little kids!

I would have thought instructors, whether they're teaching ski-ing or snowboarding, would be more careful and show by example how to stay safe on the ski slopes.

I've just realized that I forgot to say how I got back to Verona airport from the Gran Baita hotel in Folgarida.

The others left on Sunday morning, the way they came. So 2 of them went on the bus, the FlySki shuttle, back to Milan Bergamo airport (cost 35 euros return, takes about 3 1/2 hours) for the RyanAir flight to Stansted. And 11 of them returned to Verona airport in the taxi minibus (total cost 700 euros return which worked out at 64 euros per person), takes about 2 1/2 hours, for the EasyJet flight to Gatwick. 7 of them drove back to the U.K. in 3 cars.

Cat and I had 8 days to ski, instead of 6 like everyone else, because we stayed in a very posh hotel, The Grand hotel in Trento (opposite the train station, cost 95 euros per night for both of us including breakfast) on the Saturday night on the way out, and Sunday night on the way back. It's by far the poshest hotel I've ever stayed in - it's like a marble palace! And the supper we had was delicious. We both splashed out and had a really good meal and it didn't cost the earth - about 60 euros for both of us including drinks. And they very kindly gave Cat her breakfast in a bag in the morning, so she could eat it on the train!

On the way out, as I said before, we left our luggage in the ski hire shop in Daolasa and skied to Folgarida, and the ski hire shop owner very kindly delivered our luggage to the hotel for nothing in the evening. I had e-mailed him to make these arrangements before we arrived, and he didn't want a booking form, or a deposit or anything - all he said was 'Do not worry we will be there'. :)

Going back, we had the opposite problem - we had our luggage in the Gran Baita in Folgarida but the skis needed to go back to Daolasa. However, Roberto from the ski hire shop Skirent Val di Sole very kindly agreed to come to the hotel and pick them up for us, again free of charge in the evening. And Enza and Flora in the Gran Baita were really nice and phoned for a taxi (cost 25 euros) for us to take us to the train station for the Dolomiti Express back to Trento. We were going to go to Dimaro, the nearest station, but the taxi driver said it would cost the same to go on to Male, which is a bigger station, so we did. And this worked out very well because they had a cafe there so we could buy something to eat and drink as I hadn't had time to eat anything after I came off the ski slopes.

The ski train, the Dolomiti express, is a train specially adapted for carrying bikes in the summer and skis in the winter, with racks for this. And it's very cheap. It only cost us 4 euros each to get back to Trento. It takes about an hour and a half.
I should think it would be possible to get from the U.K. to Verona airport and on to Folgarida in one day, the way I did it, but I decided to break my journey at Trento and do it like that. The FlySki shuttle bus from Verona to Folgarida is the easiest way of doing it (if you don't hire a car or share a taxi), but it only runs at the weekend.

The following day, Monday, Cat and I had a very early start from the posh hotel in Trento to catch a train at about 7-10 a.m. because she had to get to Milan Linate airport for a lunchtime flight back to the U.S. I wouldn't recommend anyone to fly to this airport to get to Folgarida because it involves too many separate train journeys, but the U.S. flights don't go to Verona. The train from Trento to Verona only cost 7 euros.

Cat changed trains at Verona and went on to Milano Centrale and hence on to Milan Linate airport (and caught her flight!). I had plenty of time before my flight so I'd decided to have a look around Verona. It's only about a 10 minute walk to the centre of Verona from the train station where they have a left luggage facility. I had a look at Juliet's balcony (Romeo and Juliet is set in Verona), the Roman amphitheatre, and a few other things. And then I got the airport bus from the train station. This bus costs 6 euros each way, runs every 20 minutes, takes about 15 minutes, and you can buy tickets for it at the newsagents shop at the station.

So - my transfers between Verona airport and Folgarida were rather complicated, but I did manage to get 8 days ski-ing and have a look around the city of Verona. And I like travelling on trains. I hadn't been on an Italian train before. I noticed that they have ticket stamping machines on the platform like the French do. A friend of mine had warned me about this as he'd been in a lot of trouble with a ticket inspector because he hadn't stamped his, so I made sure I stamped mine!

On the way up to Trento from Verona train station I'd been slightly suspicious of a man in the train. He came walking through the carriage, looked at Cat sleeping (jet lag), and then he looked at me looking at him looking at her, and moved on. I've never had anything happen like that on a French or British train, and I wondered if it's because the Italian train was so cheap that pick-pockets could afford to travel on them. Of course, I might have been imagining it.

Total cost of my transfers:
Bus from Verona airport to the train station return = 12 euros
Verona to Trento on the train, return = 14 euros
Trento to Daolasa and Male to Trento Dolomiti express train = 8 euros.
Half the taxi fare from the Gran Baita to Male = 12.50 euros
Total = 46.50 euros

That was really funny (and informative). Thank you :)