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Once-in-a-lifetime Tyrol Trip


MNSurfer

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Doesn't look to be much traffic in here, but it can't hurt to post.

 

Coming-up on 45, and I'm looking into taking the wife to the Tyrol/Bolzano area. I've always wanted to go there, as my grandmother and grandfather both emigrated from this area. We're the only family with our last name in the United States, and thought it would be fun to meet some distant relatives. And burn a few runs.

 

So a couple of questions:

If there for say a week, skiing 5-6 days, and not sure where we would stay (on or off mountain).

1. Where would you go? Again, in the Tyrol/Sudtirol region.

2. Are there certain dates to avoid, so as to avoid crowds? Even odd ones (think Presidents Day weekend, in the US)?

 

I've paged-through dozens of resort webpages, and admittedly, it's a bit overwhelming. We're not looking for the biggest and baddest; Fun skiing, and as few a crowd as possible. And at 40-something, we don't really care about nightlife and such.

 

Thanks!

-Brian

 

 

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Hi Brian

 

Do you have specific dates just yet ?

 

I usually go there second week of January as in italy There is so called turbo week.

My personal recommendation is the Folgarida/marilleva area, where if you buy the right pass you have access to 5 resorts connected together. 

Let me know if you need anything else

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Thanks so much for the information. We don't have dates, as this is still a couple years away. Maybe 2020 or '21. But with one kid, and another in the works, I need to start getting my schedule/plan together as soon as possible.

 

I like the idea of being able to ride several resorts; It seems like it would make lodging a lot easier, as you could just stay in one place for a few days.

 

 

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there is a couple of resorts like that in Austria or Italy.

Italy has much better weather though. 

check out this site:

http://www.valdisole.net/en/homepage/

they usually have deals there too, which are always worth it.

When you will be closer to your dates, I can recommend a few hotels that are located right on the slopes.

Price per person: 7 nights, 6 days of riding, HB - approx 540 euros

Enjoy!

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  • 3 weeks later...

My brother in law lives in the Czech Republic, and we met him and his family for a ski trip in the Dolomites three or four years ago. We stayed in this village: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seis_am_Schlern, and accessed the ski area via a long gondola ride to the base area. I think the ski area was Alta Badia, but I may be wrong, it has been a few years, as I mentioned. 

Now here's the thing that was totally new to me as an American: there are chair lifts everywhere, in all directions, and you can cover substantial ground doing "ski touring" - there are multiple ski areas that share a common pass: https://www.dolomitisuperski.com/en One very cool thing that we did was a day trip around a massif - it took all day and needed careful attention to direction finding (fortunately my BIL is very familiar with the area), but what an awesome experience. It's called the Sellaronda: http://www.sellaronda.info/eng/, and involved a ton of riding and at one point, walking at least half a mile through a town to a cog railroad to go up to the next chair lift. Just really different and fun from an American perspective. 

At home, we get to the hill as early as possible, charge hard for 3-4 hours, and are gone by 1. The Alpine riding experience is totally different: enjoy the scenery, make some turns, stop for a coffee or hot chocolate, some more lazy runs, an amazing lunch at a mountain hut -- you get the idea. A really great trip and I hope to get the chance to go back some time. 

Note that I opted not to bring a snowboard; I bought a used Oxygen Proton from ebay.de and had it shipped to the hotel where we stayed our night of arrival. We didn't rent a car, went everywhere by public transit, so it was kind of a drag to carry it everywhere, but I only paid about 120 euros for the board and bindings, which beats the hell out of paying to carry one of my nice boards from home and worrying about damage: I only had to carry my boots. 

At any rate, highly recommended, you will have a blast!

 

 

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Thanks for the info, Dan. yes, that's been confusing, when looking at ski areas. It's just totally different, and makes NA mountains look simple. I'll certainly need to try to figure this out.

The one thing that's made things even more difficult, is that US resort maps are far, far more detailed, than European places I've looked at. Every trail is marked, base village maps, etc., where Euro piste maps are very uninformative.

I like you comment about the pace of the day. That'll drive me a little nuts, but the old lady will certainly appreciate keeping it mellow. 

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Hello MN Surfer, we live right by South Tirol and we stay in the area called "Ortler Arena" 

That's a total of 16 different ski resorts and 1 pass can be bought for all of them.

Our favorite areas are Sulden, Watles steep slopes and small resort, Schön Eben is great with the family, Nauders Austria is great too...

http://www.ortlerskiarena.com/en/skiing-in-italy.html

If you have any other questions, let us know...

Home of the Mountain Slope, Switzerland (5min from South Tirol) 

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  • 1 year later...

Hi MN Surfer,

I have just joined this forum following a mention in a Ryan Knapton's YT video. I hope to learn a lot from you guys and I'm equally happy to help, so responding to your post, hope you're still planning this visit as it's totally worth it. I live in Poland and visit the Alps once per year for winter holidays. Just like you want to come over to Europe, I hope one day to go and see some slopes in NA for a change :) I've been to a few different resorts in the Alps and I agree with slapos' post above that Italy usually has better weather and also, I find it more affordable. There are a few places worth mentioning, such as Marilleva and Madonna di Campiglio, Ponte di Legno and Passo del Tonale, and if your looking for a more luxurious experience more to the east there is Cortina d'Ampezzo and Kornplatz. The best time to go is mid January through to the end of February. Currently, the weather is crazy good, lots of sun which makes the snow a bit wet in the lower parts of the mountains. I just came back from Folgaria, which is in the lower parts of the Alps (towards Venice), I don't recommend that area - way to much struggle to get from one slope to another. Next year I'll probably try Marilleva or Kronplatz myself. 

Happy shredding ;)

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  • 1 month later...

For any hardbooter (meaning you prefer groomed piste over fresh snow), Kronplatz is a *MUST*.

It is by far and long the best resort on old continent, and I'm pretty sure I'm not exaggerating if I say it's in top 3 in the world - if not THE best.

Skipass is expensive, and you want to avoid first/second week of the year because of crowd, but other than that it's over 80km of perfectly (and I mean PERFECTLY) groomed runs, there are top of the art lifts, none of them require you to stand on snow (you can rest), it's all very well interconnected, and in the near of the resort there's factory for snow cannons, which they test on the resort, so it's covered by snow the entire season, and there's a cannon every 30 meters on every slope.

There's only one downside - you get spoiled. You get spoiled for life, because after that mountain nothing will ever again be the same. I know it sounds like a (bad) publicity post, but for you guys from USA and Canada, if already making a trip over the pond, be sure to visit Kronplatz. It's covered in Dolomiti Superski pass, too.

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  • 3 weeks later...

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