SELVA VAL GARDENA, ITALY

Brilliant week in the Italian Dolomites. The area has benefited from continued infrastructure investment. Would highly recommend the Hotel Linder for location, service and food. Italy continues to be excellent value.

Apres Ski: 4/5

Stephen Broadbent

We had an incredible week of skiing at this resort. It was our first time to the Dolomites and scenery, skiing, people, and weather [snow on the first day, sunshine thereafter!] were all amazing. The hotel we chose (the Continental) was located on the Sella Ronda which made it easy to get to a lot places and we could cover great distances. The hotel was clean, seemingly quite recently refurbished, very comfortable, with a good mix of extra services (bar, games room, small spa, etc) and the staff were excellent - very helpful, welcoming, and unobtrusive. The multi-course evening meals were lovely, with a nice and affordable local drinks list, and overall it was very good value for money. Those seeking the very ultimate in luxury would look elsewhere but we felt it was pitched just right for a week of skiing! Very highly recommended. The only slight downside was that you trade a location on the slopes for a 10 minute hill walk into the main town area and apres bars. Selva itself is small but we found three good bars offering a mix of apres and evening entertainment - more than enough. We went just before UK half-term weeks so it was still relatively quiet and we barely had to queue for lifts (helped by the massive ski area no doubt!) - the only exception being when we skied out to the Marmolada glacier runs beyond Arabba and the queues seemed enormous. There are some huge and long runs, great for intermediates; several parks; but perhaps not that many super-challenging runs for the hardcore (not us!)? Food on the mountain was seemingly good value, although pretty much the same everywhere we went in the area! Overall, we rated this as one of the very best skiing holidays we've had in the past decade and would recommend not only the area, the town of Selva (great location), but also the hotel. A perfect combination for a fun and relaxed week on the mountains! [also worth noting that Iglu were very helpful throughout, and particularly when one of our group suffered an injury a couple of days before we were due to start the holiday and we had to rearrange some details at the last minute. We'd certainly book through them again in future for the ease and professionalism we experienced. ]

Apres Ski: 3/5

Peter