I’ve just come back from my winter holidays so it means that I’m going to give you a full review of the place called Civetta Ski Region, which in my opinion is one of the best Ski Resorts in Italy. Get ready for a bunch of great sunny ski photos. Read on to know the details.
I must say that my batteries are fully charged after this one week in the Dolomites. The weather was the best I had ever in my life skiing – all 7 days of clear sky with perfect sun and temperature around 4 degrees.
For the last 4 years, we were skiing on Alpe di Siusi slopes and we had accommodation in Ortisei. I wrote about it in my last article: Best place to ski with kids. But this time we decided to try something new. We picked the Civetta ski region, as our friends recommended it as one of the best ski resorts in Italy.
Table of Contents
Hit the Road Jack!
Our destination was Val di Zoldo, a small town at the feet of Civetta Mountain. As I had to transport a bigger group of people, I decided to rent a bus – Ford Transit. You can easily fit there with all your stuff and it’s quite comfy for long distances.
We were approaching Zoldo from the north and the road was not as good as to Ortisei. Google Maps suggested us the way which supposes to be short and fast but in the end, it was horrible – we were crossing the mountains through the winding country roads… my poor daughter got sick from that… As we learned later, our friends missed Google’s advice and took the next motorway exit and it was a lot better. Luckily the weather was perfect.
Val di Zoldo
Let me give you some basic information about Val di Zoldo. It’s a small town in the province of Belluno inhabited by 3 242 persons. The interesting fact is that Val di Zoldo town was established on 23rd of February 2016 by the merger of the municipalities of Forno di Zoldo and Zoldo Alto.
One thing was weird to me. Just after dark, the town seemed to be completely empty. Only a few locations looked like somebody is there… If anyone local is reading this maybe you could drop some comment on that – is it my feeling or it’s like that?
Accommodation
As I told you before, our group was quite large. Altogether we were 16 people. This forced us to split into different accommodations. Let me tell you about these ones which we considered as worth recommending.
Residence Panorama
My family and our friends stayed in Residence Panorama run by Elisabeth who is a very friendly person. The rooms were tidy and spacious. The big advantage is an elevator – it’s brilliant as we had our apartments on the second floor. With additional payment, you can use the sauna (newly build and clean) and order fresh bread in the morning.
Unfortunately, Residence Panorama has no ski room, so you have two options – you can rent a locker deposit at Pecol ski lift station and keep your equipment there or you can keep your boots in apartments and skis in the car. We decided to go for the second option. We were going anyway to the ski lifts by car, so it was not too problematic.
If you want to keep your ski stuff in deposit, first – book it in advance. Second – be prepared for long lines to get your things. Sometimes you can get mad waiting until deposit staff will bring your equipment. We heard some people complaining about that.
Our room was number 3 (called
Hotel Edelweiss
Our friends’ parents booked accommodation in the Hotel Edelweiss and they were really happy with that choice. Breakfast and dinner were included in the price. On top of that, the service was really kind and helpful and the hotel has a free of charge transfer of guests to the nearest ski lift – Pecol.
If you prefer hotel rooms from apartments then Hotel Edelweiss seems to be a good choice.
If you want to search your place to stay with Airbnb – then here is a bonus from me – using this link to register on Airbnb, you will get around 25 EUR discount from Airbnb on your first booking.
Ski Pass and Prices
Civetta Ski Region is a part of Dolomiti Superski. It means that you can buy a Dolomiti Superski ski pass which allows you to ski also outside Civetta on any of 12 ski resorts in Italy (for example you can go skiing on Sella Ronda). We decided to buy ski pass only for Civetta Region. The cost for 6 days adult ski pass was 255 EUR and for Juniors (8 years up) 178 EUR. You can check current prices under this link.
It’s worth to keep the bill from ski pass purchase. In case of losing or damaging of your ski pass you can get a new one for 10 EUR.
Civetta Ski Region
Civetta Ski Region is wrapped around Civetta Mountain and consist of four locations: Zoldo, Palafavera, Alleghe, and Selva di Cadore. This is also a way how the lifts and slopes are organized. In total Civetta has 22 lifts and 72 kilometers of slopes. Majority of slopes are blue ones, with red slopes, and 4 black tracks. Honestly, I think that even the red slopes are not demanding. My daughter, who is just a beginner, and she was able to ski on any slope in Civetta without fear (check her skiing on the video in the next chapter of this article :-))
Just to get you a taste of these beautiful slopes in this region, I will write a few words about each of these places in the following paragraphs. I hope that photos will convince you that Civetta is one of the best ski resorts in Italy. If you would like to download a
Pecol
If you stay in Val di Zoldo, the easiest way to get to the slopes is to use Pecol lift. This is a cable car which takes you to the
I will give you one advice. Our first day was not too good, due to some problems with finding a parking spot. The problem is that on the weekend, a lot of people from Italy is coming to Val di Zoldo for skiing. This makes it impossible to park a car on the main parking after 10 am in the morning. This happened to us. We wanted to grab a little bit more of sleep on Sunday and we arrived at Pecol around 11… Well, the parking was full and we had to use a backup one located 300 meters away. That would not be a big problem, but take a look on below photo – parking was in tragic condition. We were drowning in the mud. Later that day, my car was looking like a Dakar race car – fully covered in mud. The dirt was everywhere – outside the car, inside the car. After coming back from holidays, I’ve spent 2 hours on Sunday trying to clean the bus from mud (with success :-)). So my tip here for you: get up early in the morning on weekends in Zoldo…
Zoldo
Slopes of Zoldo are reachable by the cable car Pian del Crep. Zoldo ski routes consist of 8 lifts and 13 tracks (2 black, 7 red and 4 blue). I definitively recommend checking the beautiful red track Cristelin (number 39) leading to the lower station of the cable car and wide soft La Grava (number 43) which is perfect for kids (check the movie below :-)).
When you will get tired, you can grab something to eat and drink at the restaurant located on the top of Palma lift. If you are lucky and the sky is clear and sunny, then you will see from there a beautiful panorama of Mount Pelmo.
Palafavera
To get to the Palafavera you have to take route number 40 and turn left at the end of the track to lift Delle Coste. Palafavera has just two lifts and 3 slopes (two red, one blue).
At the restaurant in the Palafavera valley, you can try great Nutella cake – it’s delicious.
Alleghe
You can get to Alleghe from Palafavera with lift number 21 – Pioda. At the top of Pioda, you will see some beautiful views of Civetta and Pelmo mountains.
At the end of route number 4 – Lander, you can find Ristoro Fontanabona – a place where we used to eat our lunch a couple of times. It’s a really climatic restaurant with nice atmosphere and very kind service. We loved their Panna cotta.
200 meters from Restaurant Fontanabona, you can get to the cable car Col
Thursday was a
At the top of Col dei Baldi you can also eat something at the restaurant and rest a little bit in sun.
A tip for you: in Civetta Ski Region in all restaurants which I have visited, service is included in the bill and is called “Coperto” (you can read some more about tipping culture in my article on how to tip around the world). It is calculated base on the number of people at the table.
Selva di Cadore
Selva di Cadore has the longest and the widest slopes in Civetta Ski Region. It has also some breathtaking panorama views – if you take a closer look, you will see a part of Sella Ronda in the far distance (good weather recommended).
Da Christian Pizzeria
Is Civetta Ski Region One of The Best Ski Resorts in Italy?
Everything good comes to an end. Holidays are gone and I’m back home writing this post and I appreciate this moment as I had a chance to go back with my memory to these sunny days in Civetta. Well, skiing was amazing this year. Can’t wait till the next winter holidays.
To wrap up this text and resume I must say: Yes, Civetta is one of the best ski resorts in Italy. It has really beautiful views, great ski tracks and it’s not so crowded as other Italian resorts. As I hate crowds, this is one of the biggest advantages for me. If you take a look at the photos, you will see that the slopes are almost empty.
Drop your comments if you have been there – let me know how did you like your stay.
All photos & featured image: Lucas
Hi there, we’ve been skiing in Civetta about 5 times. It is a very beautiful area and the pistes are often very quiet. Just had to fill you in on one thing regarding storage of your ski equipment. Underneath the chalet where you can hire ski equipment, at the Pecol lift, there is a huge heated locker room. You can hire a locker here, best to do it in advance. It is so useful and possibly one of the best features of the resort! You can fit 3 or 4 peoples stuff in one locker, they are heated so nice dry ski boots in the morning and warm shoes to put on at the end of the day. You can also ask for more than one key card, though there is a fine if you lose one. Last year was the first time in several years we didn’t go, looks very warm! In February we’ve always had good snow and plenty of blue skies never that warm though! We are back again this year! Can’t wait!
Hi Hazel, thanks for this piece of advice. It will definitely be useful.
I also think that we will come back again to Civetta as we had a really nice week there.
But this season we go to Siusi – back to Val Gardena.