La Thuile is a popular skiing area located in the Aosta Valley (Valle d'Aosta). It is not very far from Aosta (the capital of Valle d'Aosta), Aosta is now recheable in less than an hour.

It has one main hotel (Planibel Hotel & Residences) that has all the modern facilities one could expect: gym, swimming pool, ski hire, many shops (including a supermarket), game room etc. It is owned by ATA Hotels (www.atahotels.it) but the hotel is now operated by Tivigest (www.tivigest.com) but the residence is still operated by ATA Hotels. The nice thing is the fact that this hotel is right in front of the pistes, so you can wake up in the morning and take a short walk (not more than 3 minutes!) and you can put your skis or snowboard on!!!!!

There are also many small and nice hotels around as well which are closer to the tradition of the Valle d'Aosta.

If I were you I'd go to the residence or a small hotel because you can try some of the very nice local dishes. If you go to the Planibel Hotel you won't be able to try local dishes.

Let's talk about the slopes. There are more than 150 km of slopes that also include the french part of La Rosiere. The charlifts and the gondolas are very modern, they are constantly changed by the Funivie Piccolo San Bernardo company that also operates the slopes. The slopes are usually in excellent conditions because the Gatti delle Nevi work on them all night!!!

There are several ways of accessing France and the good thing is that there are no surcharges, it's the same Skipass!!! If you buy the Skipass in La Rosiere it includes only the French area and so to access Italy you need a separate one.

Because the chairlift equipment is modern you rarely have queues (the only exception is Saturday and Sunday). The only time where you have problems skiing is when there is a lot of wind and so for security reasons some chairlifts are shut down.


To know if the slope
, the chairlift or the international connection are open, you have electronic boards all over the place.

The season always lasts until the end, even if the snow starts melting artificial snow is made.

If you want a coffee there are several bars around the slopes where you can buy all sorts of stuff.

The nice thing is that La Thuile is good for all ages, there are some very hard slopes, such as number 3 (black) but also some very nice and easy such as number 7 and 4. Slope number 7 is 11 kilometers long and is very beautiful. You can also start from France and go on to La Thuile non-stop.


When you get up to Belvedere (means nice view), you'll understand why it's called like this. Each time I stop a minute in Belvedere and look around I'm surprised of what I see, it seems a painting, all the mountains around are just incredible and an explanation cannot describe them.

There is also a very good ski school which even organises lessons in English. The school is very well organised and they speak at least 4 languages: Italian, Valle d'Aostan dialect, French and English.

Night life is not bad neither, there are several discos and pubs and the Planibel Hotel organises many activities which vary from watching a movie to some fun!!!!!


How to get there: Many companies have packages to La Thuile (Interski, Neilson, Thomson etc.) where you take flights from many UK airports, land in Turin and then take a bus to La Thuile. If you want to get there on your own there are no direct flights between UK and Turin and so you have to change at some airports (Milan, Rome, Bologna or Venice). Note that from Milan to Turin there are no flights but 3 buses a day so it might be better to change at other airports.


La Thuile is definitevely a place to visit and especially ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!!