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Dolomites Ski Sabbatical

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
I'd love some advice about where in the Dolomites my wife and I should base ourselves for our winter 2024 ski sabbatical.

The background is that our nest is about to be empty with our son off to university in the fall. My wife and I both predominantly work remotely so we thought it would be fun to live/work/ski somewhere in the Dolomites for a few months.

We're planning for about mid-January until mid-March. We will not have a car. Our best case wish list is:
- In a town with some shops, restaurants, bakery, grocery store, etc.
- Close to Sella Ronda.
- Short walk to decent lifts, ideally suitable for walking in ski boots.
- Spectacular views!

We're both very competent skiers. We've never skied the Dolomites, but we've done a fair bit of skiing in the Alps (Switzerland, Austria, France) as well as western Canada.

My hunch is that Santa Cristina ticks a lot of those boxes. Ortisei seems nice and big but it seems a bit far from the skiing I'm hoping for.

Any thoughts from Dolomites experts out there? Thanks!
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@pgostovic, welcome to snowHeads! snowHead

When I read your post I immediately thought of two possible general areas. The first was one of the 3 towns in the Val Gardena valley i.e Selva/Wolkenstein, St. Christina or Ortisei/St. Ulrich. Obviously Selva is directly on the Sella Ronda, but even if you were to stay in Ortisei it doesn't take that long to get to Selva using the frequent bus service (and Ortisei itself has nice skiing on both sides, the Seceda on one side and Alpe di Suisi/Seiseralm on the other). The other general area was Alta Badia e.g Corvara (directly on the Sella Ronda) or say San Cassiano (easy to get to Passo Falazarego for Cinque Torri or a day out in Cortina with a 6Euro taxi ride from Armentarola to Passo Falzarego.

Good luck!
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Boring non ski related response.

Do you have EU rights that allow you to work while you're there for the 2 months or so?
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Working remotely, who would even know they were doing it?
Thousands "work from home" whilst on holiday in Europe every day.

@pgostovic, Welcome to Snowheads.
Sounds like a great plan.
I presume you are thinking of an apartment for the duration? Add a suitable internet connection to your essential list.

My first though would be the Val Gardina valley, but there are many here more knowledgeable than me.
If you want any suggestions for excellent rifugios on your ski days, just ask here.
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Thanks for the welcomes, and the info!

Val Gardena has generally been where I've been concentrating my search, but maybe I'll branch out to Alta Badia too. We stayed in La Villa for a week about 5 summers ago and it was really great. But I think my wife is keen on being closer to more "stuff", which seems like Ortisei (where we also stayed for a night 5 summers ago)?! My memories are a bit vague and Google street view is a poor substitute.


@swskier, honestly a work visa didn't even cross my mind because we'll just be working our same jobs, but from Italy. Very interesting. But I'm inclined to agree with @brianatab on this -- pretty sure we can plausibly claim to be having a big long ski vacation, which is not entirely untrue.
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sounds fun, we looked at this but limited ourselves to a month and settled on Corvara but would consider Ortisei (we've done 2 weeks in Corvara a couple of times). Should have done a month this year but will be doing it next. So here are some thoughts, all personal opinion of course and we all have different needs/wants...

Even in March/April this year it was difficult to find somewhere in the ski resort for a full month, obviously it depends how much you're willing to spend but decent places will already be booked for most of Feb and early March 2024. We've stayed in the same apartment block in Corvara three times. They have maybe 8 apartments and in April they only had the odd week free as many people just book the following year when they leave. So you might struggle to find somewhere near a ski bus stop, lifts or shopping for 2 months for 2024.

We've driven/hired and TBH I can't imagine not having a car. Driving is easy and there is plentiful parking. Ski buses in the valleys are good but between the valleys public transport in winter is almost non existent (although you can find taxis). We liked just jumping in the car and driving to a different ski area. e.g. if you wanted to spend a day in Cortina will be almost impossible by public transport from Val Gardena but maybe 1.5 hr drive. Also the smaller towns don't have things like a decent supermarket (e.g. the COOP in La Villa is the biggest in AB).

Alta Badia - we've stayed here several times - you've visited La Villa so no real explanation needed. For us positives are great variety of skiing (SR, Kronplatz, Cortina all on your doorstep), Brunico is a good sized town and a short drive (there are public buses as there is no pass to go over), downsides a bit soulless and without a car lacking facilities for a 2 month stay.

So Val Gardena/Ortisei - we have not stayed here but have visited and Ortisei is a lovely little town with skiing on your doorstep and a nice little Piazza, it seems to be a proper town rather than resort with two ski areas accessible from the town centre. We liked it and would definitely consider it for a longer stay, can't comment on facilities. The only down side is you need a ski bus for the SR but it's only maybe 10 mins in a bus/drive and that's not much difference to staying somewhere on the edge of town in a resort on the SR. Val Gardena seems more of a sprawling resort. That corner of the SR is good with the various ski areas easily accessible (you can pretty much ski in 4 directions).

Canazei - we stayed here one week, again proper little town with everything that comes with that (swimming pool IIRC) but not as pretty as Ortisei and not as handy for a variety of ski areas. But is cheaper and the further down the valley you go the cheaper it becomes at the cost of convenience and scenery. It's the budget option.

Arabba - not stayed here but seems like a large village with not much going on, ok for a week but not for 2 months ?
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@richb67, there's very little in Arabba IMHO
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
We recently stayed in Selva (third time there) and it would be perfect if you can find something available for the budget you have .
A decent sized place with lots of shops and some nightlife and restaurants outside of hotels.
Good access for both directions on Sella Ronda and you can easily get to Seceda (one area above Ortisei) and Alpi Suisi.

We had a good potter one afternoon down to Ortisei to see if it might be a good future location for my wife (to get to Alpi Suisi for gentler skiing) and although it has more "stuff" and is quite pretty - the place is a big sprawl and access to sella ronda is going to be slow whether via lifts or bus .... The lifts to seceda are via a long underground set of walkways and escalators (the lift is quite a way above town) and then you have a long gondola followed by a cable car (which is often very busy) before you get to seceda .... then to get to SR you have to ski down - get a funicular down to Santa Christina - and only then can you get access up to join SR ... .
The buses from Ortisei to Selva were about every 30 minutes and took around 25 minutes .... but not all of them allow skis on - we got stuck there after doing the long run from Seceda down (La Longia) and eventually coughed up for a taxi. We decided the negatives of being in Ortisei were not worth it.

San Cassiano would be too small for a long stay - but its lovely and peaceful.

La Villa might well be my pick.... cheaper than Selva but very good access to Alta Badia and then SR ... enough shops and stuff to keep you going .
Regular and quick buses to Corvara and San Cass (10 mins either way) . Or some pleasant walks in either direction.
Can do all of SR (and satellites) from here - plus easier to access Cortina , Santa Croce and Kronplatz.
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@pgostovic, I did it, working a couple of hours an evening while I was away for 5 weeks in March and April this year, so definitely not suggesting you don't, just worth considering.

If you work for yourself then fine, if you don't and are logging on to an organisations laptop, they might see you're abroad and kick up a fuss, definitely check that out as that could really scupper your plans.
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swskier wrote:
@pgostovic, I did it, working a couple of hours an evening while I was away for 5 weeks in March and April this year, so definitely not suggesting you don't, just worth considering.

If you work for yourself then fine, if you don't and are logging on to an organisations laptop, they might see you're abroad and kick up a fuss, definitely check that out as that could really scupper your plans.


sackable offence where I work and that is for a French company and I would have FOM to other EU countries. They say it creates all kinds of labour and tax implications so we are strictly not to do it. But that is as a lowly employee not some buccanearing freechancer.
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Depends on the organization.

I work for an American company, the policy is clear. Only in North America. So Canada and Mexico is fair game. But not Europe. My friend’s company explicitly prohibits any foreign countries. So no Canada for him. Every company has different policy.

Definitely worth checking before hand.
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If it's for a couple of months have you considered a town/city which has easy access to skiing

e.g. Merano, Bolzano, Brunico (Bruneck)
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Re working abroad, as @davidof posted above, the major issue if working abroad as an employee is that this could mean that the employer is considered to have a presence in the country, and would therefore need to adhere to local employment and tax laws, which could be a significant overhead. As an employee, the problem is that any decisions by the employer on this would involve the HR and finance departments, which tend to be very risk-averse. Hence it's not unusual that working from abroad is a sackable offence.

If the employer is a multi-national that already has a presence in the destination country, then this is not an issue. Similarly if you're self-employed, then there's no obligation on any companies you contract to (but if you have your own company, then strictly it could have these obligations). Otherwise it is potentially significant. The only safe option would be to check your company's policy.

Note that most modern cloud technologies can track from where you access them, and it's increasingly common to raise alerts when access is not from the expected country / region. The company I do most work for flagged up when I logged in from Austria this last season (though only on the second trip out). You could potentially get around this using a VPN; however, as the tracking is primarily a security measure, and a VPN is an obvious way to try and circumvent this check, I expect the major cloud providers will put in effort to detect access via VPNs
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Ok, thanks for the work-related advice, but I'm good on that. My wife and I both work for firms that accommodate digital nomads! We would not be sneaking this.

I'm curious how people find apartments to rent in the area. So far I've been checking listings in on https://www.dolomitisuperski.com, https://www.valgardena.it, AirBnb, VRBO. Any other good resources?
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
pgostovic wrote:
Ok, thanks for the work-related advice, but I'm good on that. My wife and I both work for firms that accommodate digital nomads! We would not be sneaking this.

I'm curious how people find apartments to rent in the area. So far I've been checking listings in on https://www.dolomitisuperski.com, https://www.valgardena.it, AirBnb, VRBO. Any other good resources?


local tourist boards or booking.com but IIRC in Italy there is a maximum length for a holiday let so you might need a short term rental. This is painful so you could move part way through. I did a price comparison once the same properties on various platforms - generally speaking cheapest was direct, then booking.com, then airbnb, then VRBO. Sometimes VRBO was >30%more than booking.com! For short term rentals in English see Idealista and immobiliare.

re digital Nomads, IIRC unless you're an EU citizen you cannot be a 'digital nomad' in Italy without an appropriate visa, so if you're a UK citizen without a visa you'll be sneaking it, you're just highly unlikely to get caught.
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Trying to rent for ~2 months is tricky as it falls between holiday lets and short term rentals. It'd be rare to find good-value holiday lets now that would be completely free for a 2 month block that covers peak periods (half-term).

For holiday lets, as suggested above, you may need to move part way through. From early Jan up until half term (till Feb 10th or maybe Feb 17th) you should be able to find accommodation fairly easily for 4 or 5 weeks (though some sites, e.g. booking.com, limit to max 4 weeks).

Or maybe split it into 2 trips. One early Jan to early Feb, then another later in the season. We've done similar the last 2 years in Austria; we've stayed in the same place for 4 weeks in Jan, but otherwise typically stayed 2 weeks in one place, then another 1 or 2 weeks somewhere else.

If you're intending to work, this will put additional constraints on the suitability of accommodation - e.g. you'll probably want 2 separate rooms in which to work, with sufficient desk / table space - so you may need to be more flexible around dates / duration
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We spent 6 weeks in Ortisei this year and loved it. We were five minute walk from Alpe di Suisi lift and 8 minutes to Ortisei funicular, with great skiing and access to the Sella Ronda. It not necessary to get a bus but once or twice we did if we were planning to ski different areas, much further and wanted to cut out the ski to Selva. (having said that we (just) managed Ortisei to Marmolada and back in a day, all skiing) Alpe di Suisi was much nicer than I expected and we'd often do a couple of hours there first thing. The whole area is beautiful and having a dog we did lots of stunning walks too. So, all I'd recommend Ortisei. Our apartment didn't having the best views but good enough, a mountain and gondola to watch. Madeye-Smiley
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
@rachelb, thanks that's great to know. I like the idea of being in Ortisei just for the basic amenities, especially since we'll be without a car. I was a bit concerned about easy access to good skiing from Ortisei, but after doing a little more research I think it's a fine base!

I hope we don't go mad without a car! I'd previously thought renting a car would be easy for the occasional trip, but it doesn't look easy from there.
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Actually @rachelb since you mentioned the funicular, was that something that you used often? Was that a convenient way to get up to the Seceda Cable Car?
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@pgostovic, The Funicular in Ortesei does not access the ski area

https://www.resciesa.com/en

It is a cable car to Seceda or a Gondola to Alpe di Suisi
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I thought I wanted a week in Kronplatz next season. I'm now beginning to want a week in Ortisei more. As a piste skier one really is spoiled for choice in that part of the world. Very Happy
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The cable car from Ortesei can get very busy, so unless you specifically want to visit Seceda, you would be as well taking the bus up to St Christina or Selva in the morning, depending on your plans for the day. It would be a lot quicker than taking the Seceda loop, allowing much more time elsewhere.

However, if you have time on your return, then taking the funicular from St Christina to Seceda and La Longia for your home run down to Ortesei would be a great end to the day.
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
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@Hurtle, Just take a month. One week in Kronplatz, two weeks on bashes, and a final week in Ortesei.

Simples. Very Happy Very Happy
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@brianatab, I'm hoping to ski in Spain the week of the Birthday Bash, which somewhat puts a spanner in that idea, unfortunately.
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How are people finding the internet in the Dolomites these days? Used to be dodgy in places. Do most apartments have good connections?
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@pgostovic, I actually meant the Seceda, sorry! It is possible to access the ski area from the resciesa funicular. There is a ski run which takes you to the top of the Seceda cable car (you can see it on the Alpe di Suisi map) It was open all the time we were there with people skiing it but I thought it wouldn't make the whole season. It's right that queues can be bad for the Seceda cable car but we only once waited more than 10 mins. We are early birds though. So generally we chose to ski rather than bus to Selva, but the buses were very frequent.

@pam w, the internet in our apartment was pretty good. The occasional problem but not that much worse than our home in London. We had people staying and one who had to work a couple of days using the internet. She didn't complain (not to us anyway Smile )

I have to say, I'm so envious. I wish we were doing it again this season Laughing
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Thank you everyone for all of the great information! It's very much appreciated. I think we're leaning towards Ortisei now -- seems like a good base for ski/life balance. We'll be there for a few months so I don't feel the need for every day to be an epic ski day like I do when I go somewhere for a week. I don't mind hopping on the bus occasionally. I'm actually intrigued by the problem of getting from A to B via a series of lifts and runs. I guess that's the allure of the Sella Ronda Smile.

Regarding finding accommodation, one technique that I've found very useful is to zoom into a town on Google maps and search for "apartment". A good many results actually include a website url which allows for requests directly to the owners. Same works with Apple maps too!
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Quote:

I guess that's the allure of the Sella Ronda

the Sella Ronda is just one circuit of (mostly not terribly interesting, and often very crowded) runs. There are much better places to ski off the circuit.
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
pam w wrote:
Quote:

I guess that's the allure of the Sella Ronda

the Sella Ronda is just one circuit of (mostly not terribly interesting, and often very crowded) runs. There are much better places to ski off the circuit.

I always thought of the Sella Ronda as the “cable highway for skiers”, to allow them to get to various sectors linked to the Sella Ronda. Like highway with exit ramps that let you visit cute villages, without having the highway going through the village itself and destroying the characteristic of the village.
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@abc, good description
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 Poster: A snowHead
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I liked Kronplatz but one or two days was quite enough.

When I was there it was warm and the harder runs were just slush. Wouldn't bother to go back.

But Sella Ronda another matter and I would love to go back if circumstances allowed.
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
abc wrote:
pam w wrote:
Quote:

I guess that's the allure of the Sella Ronda

the Sella Ronda is just one circuit of (mostly not terribly interesting, and often very crowded) runs. There are much better places to ski off the circuit.

I always thought of the Sella Ronda as the “cable highway for skiers”, to allow them to get to various sectors linked to the Sella Ronda. Like highway with exit ramps that let you visit cute villages, without having the highway going through the village itself and destroying the characteristic of the village.


Sadly, this is what it has turned into (it used to be an Adventure !!) ; weirdly, I miss the days when you had to : use drag lifts ; take skis off to walk across a road ; walk through Arabba to get the lifts on the other side (and stop at the 'pop-up' cafe for a Burger Smile )
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well despite all the Sella Ronda hate, I'm still excited to try it out. I'm going ski all 1200kms of the dolomiti superski pass Smile.
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pgostovic wrote:
Well despite all the Sella Ronda hate, I'm still excited to try it out. I'm going ski all 1200kms of the dolomiti superski pass Smile.


Best of luck doing that without a car Laughing Laughing
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
It's not hate; It's just that it's hardly a highlight in such a stupendous area.
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I'd prefer to have a car, for sure - and if the cost is an issue would trade off against a smaller apartment.
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pam w wrote:
I'd prefer to have a car, for sure - and if the cost is an issue would trade off against a smaller apartment.

Not if you’re trying to work 8 hr/5 day/week in that “smaller apartment”
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
pgostovic wrote:
Well despite all the Sella Ronda hate, I'm still excited to try it out. I'm going ski all 1200kms of the dolomiti superski pass Smile.


Ignore the SR detractors Smile they are just jaded DSK veterans Smile it's beautiful scenery and a nice way to get around the area when you first arrive as it's a fairly fool proof way to get your bearings. Once you know you're way around they are just linking runs to other places you might want to go. Understandably the SR runs are busier than many others because (a) people want to 'do' the SR and (b) they link the different ski areas and (c) they are just runs in a ski resort...

it will be interesting to hear how you manage the 1,200km. IIRC you can do about 600km without needing bus. It does look like there is an Avis car hire place nr Ortisei so that's another plus for there.

I hope you manage to find some accommodation.
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richb67 wrote:
Ignore the SR detractors Smile they are just jaded DSK veterans Smile


What is DSK? Puzzled
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Alastair Pink wrote:
richb67 wrote:
Ignore the SR detractors Smile they are just jaded DSK veterans Smile


What is DSK? Puzzled




Dolomite Super SKi ??


Last edited by Ski the Net with snowHeads on Tue 23-05-23 16:31; edited 5 times in total
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