Italy’s ultimo resort

Claviere, the tiny Piedmontese village at the  skinny end of the Franco-Italian ski  superarea the Via Lattea, or Milky Way, is where it seems 1980s skiwear goes to die. One-pieces in  combinations of jade green, salmon  pink, Cadbury’s purple with fuchsia and yellow fluoro details, pepper the uncrowded slopes and sun terraces. It’s like Wham! never split up.

This sleepy corner of the Italian Alps might be several galaxies from the fiercely glamorous Prada and Gucci silhouettes which make the Dolomites’ Cortina d’Ampezzo the Milan of the mountains, yet gracious living remains a defining principle of the Claviere experience. Unfussily presented, its traditional food is divine, its service relaxed, warm and impeccably mannered, and looking-good piste-cruising is universally favoured over look-at-me, reckless freestyle tomfoolery. Off-piste fans will find plenty of fun off the sides of the Milky Way’s groomers. And the Italians’ largely merited rep for swerving freeride thrills in favour of chic carving, lingering lunching and sunbathing, means that fresh snow has a long shelf life. New and ill-defined rules on off-piste antics make it advisable to seek clarification in resort.

Claviere, Italy’s oldest ski resort, has in many ways been eclipsed by its neighbours in recent decades. Either purpose-built for high holidaymaker turnover – in the case of Sestriere, to a design by Fiat’s founder Giovanni Agnelli – or closer to the local hub Turin, the busier Italian resorts servicing the Milky Way’s 400km of pistes all have more terrain, slicker lift systems, more sophisticated nightlife, and features polished to perfection for the 2006 Winter Olympics. The pretty, tree-lined slopes of Sauze d’Oulx, traditionally a magnet for boozy, Brit clubbers, hosted the games’ freeskiing events, Sansicario maintains the state-of-the-art Olympic bobsleigh run in which tourists can buy one breathless minute. Then there’s Sestriere, a monument to 1970s modernist luxury which has two Olympic downhill runs, of which the men’s course, dropping down from the Monte Motta peak, is without doubt the don. The Olympics’ fairy dust, however, ran out before Claviere. Barely linked to its shiny neighbour resorts by a fairly gruelling, one hour-minimum connection involving a cable car, an antediluvian two-person chairlift and, depending on your direction of travel, a tedious track-like blue.

Claviere has an MO which hasn’t changed since – well, since Wake Me Up Before You Go-go was number one, at least. Essentially a one-street village, Claviere comprises a modest 33km of mainly red and blue slopes dotted with simple, queueless on-mountain lunch spots, and downtown a handful of small hotels and apartment blocks, nine restaurants, five bars and a nightclub. Aggressive development is on no one’s mind, and for the local weekenders, occasional coachload of hormonal Italian teens on school trips and those international guests who return here year after year, it’s just the way they like it. Here, the emphasis is on leisurely, uncrowded and firmly family-oriented enjoyment of the modest but varied network of well-groomed, shapely runs which drop down from some short-but-speedy above-the-treeline reds and blacks to wide, rolling back-to-base cruisers (with more than a few flat sections, boarders might wish to note), on the forested lower slopes. Great value comes with everything – from accommodation to lift passes to snow conditions, which are generally the best in the Milky Way, and nowhere more than in the food.

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