Skiing in Italy

The wonderfully distinct Italian culture has made Italy renowned throughout the world for a variety of things — from its delicious cuisine (where would we all be without pizza and pasta?) to high fashion and the arts (think heavyweights like Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Dante and Machiavelli).

Yes, these have all made significant contributions to how the country is regarded now. However, there are also a number of other attractions in Italy’s rich profile that have made equally important impacts in the face of the general public. One of these attractions is the sport of skiing.

Skiing, for most people, is form of recreation. Imagine the joy and thrill of having to move around the snow and navigate down the slopes in different speeds using ski poles and a pair of boots with flat runners attached to them (more commonly known as skis). To a selected few, skiing has already become a discipline (if not a way of life) that needs to be practiced regularly due to the ever-changing styles and techniques related to the sport.

Regardless of what skiing is to a person, the fun and challenge presented by the sport is enough reason to try it. With its easy-to-learn nature, a first-timer doesn’t really need to delay the excitement by spending long hours of lessons, training, and practice before being able to test the slopes. Give it a weeks worth of lessons from a ski school and you’re off to enjoy the adrenalin rush, along with your bag of new tricks of course. Breathtaking scenes, which you are sure to come across, merely serve as bonuses during the whole experience.

Though it might not be one of the first things that come to mind when the word 'Italy' is mentioned, skiing has become a popular sport in the mountainous regions of the country. Italy covers a large area that hosts world-renowned mountain ranges such as the Apennine Mountains, a certain region of the Alps, and the Dolomites. Thus, it could be said that the locations and opportunities to ski are massive.

And where people go, businesses will surely follow as various ski resorts, ski schools, and other related facilities have sprouted like mushrooms. Add to that the numerous bars and restaurants that are there to take people’s attention away from skiing, or at least for a while.

Among the well-known resorts, facilities, and areas around Italy are the Alps’ Courmayeur and Via Lattea, the Dolomites’ Cortina d’ Ampezzo and Dolomiti Superski, and the Via Lattea’s Sauze d’Oulx, Sestriere, Montgenèvre, and Claviere. The Dolomites’ popularity as a winter sport venue is world-famous, tracing all the way back to 1956 when Cortina d’Ampezzo played host to the Winter Olympic Games. In line with that, Via Lattea will be having that distinction too, playing host to the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics.

Seeing how skiing is a perfect and lasting complement to Italy’s landscape and lifestyle, it is one sport that has already cemented itself in Italian culture.