Adventure in the Alps

Article By: Carol Baker

A little piste in Italy and Germany... a treat for body and soul.

If you need one reason to ski the Dolomites in northeastern Italy, make it the sunshine, that elixir for magical memories.

According to local ski maestro Alberto Da Rin, most snow falls and most winds blow in November. Throughout the rest of the season, skies are usually sunny. Cortina is Italy's most fashionable and popular ski resort, a three-hour drive north of Venice's Marco Polo airport. At an altitude of 1,225 metres, the town sits in a breathtakingly beautiful valley surrounded by dramatic stone crags and spires stretching 3,200 metres skyward. The most famous peaks are Cinque Torri, a limestone formation resembling five towers, popular with cliff-hangers. The five ski areas, connected by lifts and ski-buses, comprise 140 kilometres of downhill pistes, and 70 kilometres of cross-country trails.

La dolce vita is another reason to ski Italy. Italians are passionate about their fine food and wine, and while Cortina itself is home to a hundred restaurants, scattered around the surrounding mountains are dozens of rifugi ("refuges" or huts) - rustic restaurants with south-facing terraces. At these inexpensive and sociable places the food is fabulous, as it usually is when Italians are in control of the kitchen. Even the vegetarians in our ski group could not resist the "lard" sandwiches, containing the fatty part of smoked mountain ham, sliced so paper-thin that it melts in the mouth. Another specialty of the region is casunziei; ravioli filled with red beets. Both lunch and dinner are usually preceded by a flute of prosecco, a dry, champagne-like aperitif that warms the spirit.

And then there are those who come to Cortina to see and be seen. The fashion parade takes place along the Corso Italia, the main shopping street, between five and seven p.m. daily. You'll find everything from $20 T-shirts to $40,000 fur coats, and it's almost impossible to overdress in Italy.

About 7,000 people live in the town, but, come Christmas, more than 35,000 skiers, sun seekers, shoppers, and socialites crowd the hotels and chalets. This means line-ups at the lifts and a cortege of cars on the one-way perimeter road circling the town. It also means no place to park. The best bargains are off-season ski packages during the last three weeks in January and the last two weeks in March.

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