Where to Ski And Snowboard -

Review of Cervinia

4th March 2008 by Michael Prestwich 

We (a party of seven) went to Cervinia from 17 to 24 February, and had a fantastic time.
The skiing. The weather was terrific, so all links were open. With the new lift in Zermatt from Furi to Riffelberg open, there is now no problem in accessing the entire ski area. We were able to reach Rothorn at the far end of Zermatt with no problems, returning to Cervinia by mid-afternoon. There is no difficult skiing in Cervinia, but it’s now easy to get to Hohtalli and thence to Stockhorn, if you want bumps. In many ways Cervinia is preferable to Zermatt - you can end the day skiing the Ventina (a really great run) into town, which is far preferable to those narrow trails into Zermatt. I can see, however, that Cervinia could be dreadful in bad weather, with the complete absence of runs below the tree-line.

Accommodation. We stayed in the Petit Palais. This is English-staffed, and we found it to be very comfortable. Lots of sitting space downstairs, well-furnished bedrooms, decent food. We thought it excellent, well above the standard of other ‘club hotels’ we’ve stayed in.

Lunches. Avoid the crowded restaurants at Plan Maison, with an incomprehensible system of ordering food and then collecting it later. It can take ages. Much better to ski down to the restaurant near Plan Torrette, or even return to town. But despite the excellent pizzas in Italy, the best lunches were in Zermatt -good ones on the run down from Riffelberg to Furi, and indeed at Furi itself. Take some Swiss francs to avoid being ripped off by the exchange rate restaurants use.

Ski school. Only one of our number went to ski school. No complaints at all - it all seemed very well organised, and she learned a lot.

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