Sauze d’Oulx: the unpronounceable but highly accessible Italian resort

‘Olympic Ski Village’ and ‘Benidorm of the Alps’ are not two phrases you would normally expect to use on the same ski resort. But that is exactly what happened to a little Italian village called Sauze d’Oulx (pronounced sow - zee - doo).

 

This pretty Italian village was bastardised in the 1950’s by money-hungry land owners who constructed purpose-built holiday accommodation to rival any Costa del resort. The 70’s and 80’s saw it filled with drunk Brits who had just discovered the package holiday, Europe, and snow sports. Sauze was offered a lifeline in the noughties in the form of the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics which breathed life back in to the region (the proud locals are still sporting their Olympic jackets). Where the village is destined to go, who knows? All I can tell you is what it offers now. 

 

The Snow 
First and foremost Sauze d’Oulx is incredibly well located. It's the closest ski resort to Turin airport and you can be up the mountain and on the slopes in 80 minutes. That's pretty Clarke Kent to Superman by anyone's standards. Once there the slopes range from 1400 to 2800 meters and in terms of skiable terrain you’ll be in mountain heaven. There are lazy runs through leafy forests, wide motorway runs at altitude and pretty restaurants tucked away on the edge of pistes. There is also weekly night-boarding although this is a rather chaotic affair organised by British holiday reps and involving some fairly close shaves with piste-bashers and drunk skiers. 

 

But Sauze's greatest asset is it's links to the Milky Way (not the chocolate bar but a large ski area covering five Italian and one French resort). The Milky Way offers over 400 kilometres of skiable piste. Which makes Sauze a great place for snowboard mileage.

There's lots to do off piste, much of it situated adjacent to the piste, so you can wander off exploring safe in the knowledge you’ll eventually arrive back at a chair. And should you decide to make the most of the Milky Way and snowboard over to France you can do the round trip in about five hours. You'll  cover about 170 kilometres of piste so do pack a real Milky Way, maybe a little bottle of water and definitely a camera. The views on the trip are nothing short of spectacular, especially the French side.

 

Fancy something a little less marathonic? Take a bus into Montgeneve (France) to spend the morning snowboarding there. They've built a fairly relaxed Boardercross to play in so why not re-create your very own Winter Olympics. I know I won several imaginary Gold medals. I also recommend taking a chairlift to the top of Colletto Verde or Les Anges, both of which offer incredible views of mountain peaks spanning Italy and France.

 

For a beginner the resort is probably a bit challenging. The only access to the nursery slopes is by chairlift, a daunting prospect for any beginner snowboarder. And after getting to grips with the basics on the nursery slopes there are not many options for practising. The runs down from this central area are long, and mostly red (great once you have got to grips with turning, terrifying if you haven’t). Alternatively if you take a chairlift up from the nursery slopes the runs back are long, challenging and nothing short of torturous if you decide half way down the mountain that you no longer want to learn to snowboard.

 

Button Warning
There are large numbers of button lifts in the Milky Way, some of them lasting in excess of 15 horrifying minutes, in places dragging you unceremoniously up a 45 degree angle. So if you are button-lift shy much of the resort becomes either inaccessible or requires a pre-planned route. Add to this the fact that many of the chairlifts don’t open if there is too much wind, and other chairlifts don’t appear to open at all (I assume because of staffing levels) your possible play area can be substantially reduced.

Politics on Snow
Another thorn in Sauze’s side is the Italian political system. Italian ski resorts don’t benefit from Government investment like the French ones. So resort owners have made cost cutting decisions such as reduced piste maintenance, the width of some Milky Way pistes having been reduced by 50% to save on piste-bashing costs, lots of old chairlifts, some closed chairlifts, and of course 'no chairlifts at all' in the form of those dastardly button lifts. 

 

Sauze Off-Piste 
Sauze off-piste can leave you a bit piste off. And by off-piste I mean the après scene because Sauze doesn’t do Italian culture. There are British people in their droves filling up the purpose built accommodation blocks and getting shit-faced at Costa del Sol style happy hours. Sauze seems to be under the impression it's located on the west coast of Spain, which it's not, and I hadn't planned to visit.

As a lover of picture postcard chalets and genuine European culture these unexpected realities of Sauze culture were alarming. British tourists are bused there in their thousands on Thompson style all-inclusive holidays. They are entertained by blonde holiday reps while drowning themselves in cheap pink cocktails. Every night there are pre-organised activities including getting drunk and sliding on small plastic trays down nursery slopes, to getting drunk and participating in Blind Date contests, to getting drunk and dancing at 70’s nights. There is always a squeaky high-pitched holiday rep in control of a microphone ready to make your ear drums bleed. High and low I had to search for some Italians. And even higher and lower to find evidence of Italian ski culture. But when I did find it, it was worth it.

 

The Hidden Italians  

On piste you need to head for Cicci’s House (at the halfway point of the Jouveneaux chair). Italian families congregate here for a glass of wine as the sun sets. It truly is a little bit of Italian heaven. Back in town you need to hang out in the Old Town where there are beautiful cobbled streets, tiny little restaurants hidden down alleyways, and actual Italian people, drinking espresso and speaking a language I cannot yet understand. I was even lucky enough to have drinks with the mayor of the village. He was the spitting image of Tony Soprano which was strange, and exciting, in a dangerous gangster kind of way. Tony explained that the Italians in Sauze have their own private signless bars. Here they take their aperitifs after work and listen to live music. So it’s all there for the discovering but it does take some investigative work. It is for that reason that, if you do decide to go for a drink, chances are high you’ll inadvertently find yourself sat next to a screaming hen party, the bride-to-be collapsed in a drunken pool of nastiness, or a stag party, t-shirtless and showing you their podgy man breasts. 

 

On mountain, weather permitting, you can spend some fine days here and rarely cover the same piste twice. But to make the most of the Milky Way I would strongly recommend you invest in an Italian ski guide (www.scuolascisauze.it). The Italian Ski Instrctors are incredibly positive and talented. They will gladly share with you the history of the village, show you secret beauty spots on the mountain and teach you a bit of Italian. They are also all very attractive, which is always worth a couple of Euros.

 

Off mountain the main letdown for the resort, aside from the St Antonio style strip of bars, is the calibre of some of the people holidaying there. At times the lift queues resembled the checkout line at TK Maxx, or Dixons, or a Homebase store on Boxing Day complete with screaming children and family arguments. So if you do book a holiday to Sauze be prepared.

For accommodation you MUST stay in the Old Town. There you can happily live in a world of cobbled streets and artisan shops. At night you can enjoy oven baked Italian pizza and fine Italian wine. But as the witching hour approaches, finish your meal and run like the wind back to your hotel. That way you can avoid the Brits and feel, just for a second, that you are actually in an Italian ski resort. 

 

I did enjoy Sauze d’Oulx. And there is a lot to do in the Milky Way. Even on the busier weekends you can find quiet forest runs and relatively untracked off piste to play in. You could easily keep yourself occupied for at least a couple of weeks. Sauze offers great value for money as a snowboarding destination but you need to prepare yourself before you get there. Otherwise, like me, you will lose several days a little shell shocked.

 

I think given the choice of heading to an equally accessible ski area such as the Portes du Soleil which offers a better network of linked resorts, better lift system, French-Swiss culture in abundance and picturesque villages, I’m not sure I’d return to Sauze d’Oulx. But I’d recommend it for a cheap board holiday with your mates. If only because you’re credit crunched and can’t afford Val. 

 

Milky Way Ski Area Information - www.vialattea.it/en/prese_vialattea.html

Getting there: Fly into Turin airport - find the best deals at www.kayak.co.uk

Transfers to resort, if there is a group of you, can be booked with www.airporthoppers.com

Credit crunched or travelling alone? Take a taxi from Turin airport to the train station, jump on a train (one hour) then take a bus to resort, all for less than €10. Details of this journey can be found at www.comune.sauzedoulx.to.it/e_cartina.htm

 

I would strongly recommend staying in the Gran Trun. It’s in the old town down a picturesque cobbled street. There is a bar underneath and while you can hear the music on a Saturday night it is always closed and quiet by midnight. The hotel staff are incredibly helpful and well organised. Nothing is too much trouble. There is also free wi-fi and quite a few Italian natives in for aperitifs. More info at  www.gestioniabc.it/hotels.html

 

While in Sauze d’Oulx you must eat at least once at the Ristorante Del Falco, also located in the old town. The owner of the restaurant is an ex-pat, Vince Hawkins, who is so passionate about the resort he now calls home that at times I wondered if he was going to explode with excitement. He has lived in Sauze for 20 years, serves on the local council, has a beautiful wife and three gorgeous bilingual children (one of whom is a sure fire contender for a place on the British ski team, at aged nine!)! As if that wasn’t impressive enough Vince also finds time to run one of the most popular restaurants in resort and offers a fabulous menu (try the duck), all reasonably priced, super Italian wine and great company. You will have to book in advance. More info at delfalco.com

 

 

Ski Schools
It really is worth investing in a ski guide for at least one day in order to really see the Milky Way. All the instructors at the Scuola Sci Sauze are incredible. I was lucky enough to spend some time with an instructor called Luca (who, I admit, was teaching me to ski!). If you can book some time with him he will show you all around resort, improve your snowboarding or skiing and tell you all about the ski area and the village. He may even buy you a little espresso if you are very very nice to him. More info at www.scuolascisauze.it

 

Bizarre facts: 
Despite looking overwhelmingly like the Costa Del Sol the region has actually won many prestigious architectural awards: two for mountain top structures built by famous and aged architects whose names I have forgotten; and one for a nine storey structure in town that resembles a large toilet roll. There are also more Olympic runs than you can shake a ski pole at so if you can’t get over to Canada for the Olympics next year you could always race your mates down one of the giant slalom runs here.