Sauze D'Oulx (Sauze d'Oulx)

Member Name: Mcski

Product:	Sauze d'Oulx
Date:	08/03/05 (1482 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Small Queues, Great for Intermediates, Links to Milky Way

Disadvantages: Standard of Lifts, poor for beginners/advanced, Bars/restaurants/night clubs not great

Sauze D’oulx was disappointing for us. We had been to Livigno twice and thoroughly enjoyed it, so we decided to stay in Italy this time also. The resort doesn’t come near to matching the delightful Livigno. Firstly, it is a disastrous resort for beginners and advanced skiers. For beginners, you have to take a long and steep chairlift before you even reach the snow. This can be intimidating, particularly if you have never taken a chair lift before. The blue runs are very basic and few and far between. For intermediates there are a lot of red runs, which is great if you are of that grade. For advanced skiers there is only one black run on the Sauze D’Oulx side of the mountain, which is very poor. The ski-lifts are antiquated, with no carousels in sight, just old chair lifts and some very steep button lifts. This is in a resort which is expected to host the Winter Olympics next year!! One positive is that there are relatively small queues – the week I was there only half the lifts were open, yet the queues were still short. If you are taking ski-school, go with Sportinia, they are far better. The restaurants and bars on the slopes are of an average quality, with the Powerade sponsored restaurant probably the best. The first chair lift is at the top of a long hill from the town centre. Ski buses are irregular, so unless you are very fit or get the bus, prepare for a long walk up the hill.

Apres-ski, the bars and restaurants aren’t great. A lot of the bars are tacky and the toilets are disgracefully bad. The best are probably Scatto Matto and the Cotton Club. Expect to pay €5 for a beer. The night clubs are basically dumps. Good restaurants are hard to find, and the good ones are very expensive (€40-50 per head). The shops are quite expensive, particularly Besson Sport. We stayed in Hotel Gran Bosco, which is a good hotel. Taxis are impossibly hard to get past 12:30 am. Prepare yourself for a walk home after that time.

I had a great week and I really enjoy skiing and I am an intermediate, and the company was very good, but there are better resorts out there than this one. Livigno for a start is significantly better, despite the long bus journey.

Summary: