Resort/accommodation reccommendations from Turin. 28th Feb - 7th March

Well, seems my last message got deleted for some reason. (Note to mods... when deleting a message, maybe an email or a pm to the offender will help prevent the same mistake being made twice?)

Anyhow, hope this message doesn't go the same way.

Organising a group of 10 (adults) maybe 11. Preference is to get us all in one big house or apartment but if needs be, we'll split up a bit.

Just over the border in France you can choose from loads of big chalets, but for some reason I've never understood, the Italians just don't seem to have such accommodation - it's always been a great source of mystery to me.

Anyhow, we haven't got unlimited funds, particularly with the euro/pound situation as it is. We considered Cervinia but seems very limited accommodation-wise and Valtournenche down the valley seems to be a better prospect... but I've since heard that the lift pass is very expensive for the area? Don't seem to be able to find any accommodation offered (seems very disorganised on the official websites) in any of the milky way resorts and Pila/Aosta is just too small for us - we'd like a min of about 150km of piste as we're all intermediates and above.

La Thuile, likewise, seems similar to Cervinia in that it has a very limited number of "official" accommodations (or the other ones are very well hidden!) Are there any sites that anyone knows of that actually provide access to any privately-owned houses/chalets?

Am I missing anywhere nearby? Courmayeur is too small and expensive before anyone suggests that! We want to board & ski, not pose with the beautiful people!

I'd take a look at Serre Chevalier, or possibly one of the smaller resorts on the Milky Way like Cesana, Claviere, Montgenevre or Sansicario?Serre Che has a very good website with tons of properties available.

Funnily enough I am in a similar situation.

I'm going with a group of 6 on Feb 26th for 4 days via Turin. We had planned on Cervinia (we've done that before) but my colleage booking the accommodation left it a bit late and we couldn't find anything available.

In the end I started searching for accommodation myself and just today found (and booked) a hotel in Serre Cevalier (Briancon to be precise). The price was right and, crucially, it was available for our short break. I've never been to Serre Chevalier before though I did do Les Deux Alpes a few years back which is just up the road.

Here's hoping for some great skiing at the end of Feb!

Good luck with your booking. You are after a longer break so might have more options than we did (though Cervinia is a Sunday change over so you will be lucky to get anything there unless you go for last minute vacancies and are prepared to break the group up).

Forgot to mention (is there no edit on these forums?)

When searching for accommodation I suggest you pick a resort (or town) and then just google for hotels etc. I found a number of seachable hotel sites with properties in the ski resorts of N Italy / S France.

Sometimes I just found the name of a hotel and Googled that to find a web site with booking form.

If all else fails, send off blanket emails to all the hotels you can find. This is what my colleague did but just got a string of rejections in varying languages. That's when I decided to step in and widen the net. Cervinia is great (though not huge) but there are other places within 2 hours of Turin. Champoluc is ok (did that last year) but the skiing is fairly limited and there are practically no restaurants willing to serve a large group without a booking, I remember much traipsing round town after dark looking for somewhere to eat!

I would recommend you try Sestriere. The snow is fantastic (just got back there from the weekend) and it has some really good slopes for int/adv skying. It is connected to the MiklyWay, so you have access to Sauze + Sansicario + Cesana etc... If you want to save a few $$$ you can decide not to stay in Sestriere itself but in a hotel in a town nearby (all within a 10m drive) such as Borgata or Pragelato (you should then either have a hire car or use the bus service). Ah, and if there is a day of bad weather, the new Pragelato Village resort has a fantastic spa!

The resort is 1 - 1.5 hours from Turin airport (depending on driving style and weather...)

Example of hotels in Pragelato:

http://www.valchisone.it/web/pragelato.asp

Happy choosing.

You're keen today Marc. Do you work for the tourist board there?

I was looking for something in Sestriere but couldn't find any vacancies for a group our size (only 6 of us). A few hotels had 1 or 2 rooms available.

You might have better luck booking for a full week though.

If your interested in Passo Tonale, Tops and La Torreta have appartments. Just returned, tons of snow and more on the way. Skiing for all levels.

http://adamelloski.com/Interne/Hotels.aspx?ID=3201