Civetta

Civetta is one of the most striking corners of the Dolomites, in the Veneto region of northern Italy, a handful of small mountain villages set beneath the vast pale wall of Monte Civetta. The main village, Alleghe, sits on the shore of a lake formed by a landslide in 1771, with the mountain's rock face rising straight up above the water. That face, the northwest wall of Monte Civetta, is one of the largest in the Dolomites, and part of why this whole landscape holds UNESCO World Heritage status. These are working Veneto mountain communities with a quiet, lived-in feel, set in a landscape of raw, rugged peaks that climbers have prized for generations.

The skiing suits cruisers and intermediates especially well. Most of the runs sit below the treeline, wide and well groomed, winding down through the forest with the Civetta and Pelmo peaks filling the skyline. From the high point above Alleghe at around 2,100 metres, you can drop almost all the way down to the lake, a descent of more than a thousand metres through the trees. There are gentle nursery areas at the base of each village to get started on, and a few steeper pitches higher up for stronger skiers, though the heart of it is long, scenic cruising. Civetta holds snow well for its height, with heavy natural snowfall and snowmaking across nearly all of its pistes, so the season runs from late November into early April. The lifts link the villages along the mountain, so you can ski a circuit from one valley to the next over a day. Ski Civetta covers around 80 kilometres of piste on its own, and it's part of the wider Dolomiti Superski network, which connects twelve areas across the Dolomites for anyone wanting to range further.

Off the slopes, this is Veneto, a region that takes its food seriously. Mountain refuges and village restaurants serve hearty Dolomite cooking, from polenta and cured meats to casunziei, the crescent-shaped ravioli filled with beetroot or ricotta and dressed with butter. The valley has one claim worth knowing: Val di Zoldo is the home of Italy's ice cream makers, the families who carried gelato out across Europe from the late 1800s, and you'll still find superb artisan gelato in the villages today. The non-ski hours fill easily. You can go ice skating at Alleghe, join a guided snowshoe walk to a mountain hut for dinner under the stars, or head to Val di Zoldo for the floodlit evening slopes, and there are cross-country trails through the valleys. Add the Ladin culture of the Val Fiorentina villages, rooted in one of the Dolomites' old native languages, and Civetta adds up to a rounded winter holiday, not only a ski trip.