Like Kitzbühel, but in Italy: a real town, and far more snow

If the town is what you love, Cortina is Italy's answer. It is a town first, as Kitzbühel is: a pedestrian main street, proper shops and a bell tower, with the Dolomites standing over it. It is stylish and scenic by our read, upmarket, with scenery, style and long lunches at the top of its list. And it has racing in its past, as Kitzbühel does. It hosted the Winter Olympics in 1956 and the Games again in 2026, and the Tofana above town holds its famous women's downhill pistes.

It also answers the one thing Kitzbühel regulars worry about. The town is at 1,224 metres, 424 above Kitzbühel, and the lifts reach 3,028 metres by our measure, 1,060 above yours and the second highest top of the 10 Italian resorts we cover, though the highest piste we measure starts at 2,724. It is snow sure on our measure: 67 percent of the piste we measure is above 1,800 metres. At home the figure is 11.

The trade is the mountain and the late nights. Cortina's sectors are not all linked, so the bus or a car is part of the day. We measure 85.5 kilometres of piste around the town, under two thirds of Kitzbühel's, with 9.1 kilometres of black against 34, and those blacks are far steeper on average, 32.5 percent against 25.9. Evenings start with an aperitivo on the main street and stay polished. There are places that run later, but nobody goes to Cortina for Kitzbühel's kind of night.

If it is the skiing you would miss, Madonna di Campiglio is the nearest of the three on size and feel. We measure 115 kilometres of piste around the village, the closest of the three to Kitzbühel's 135, and the split is almost as even: 47 percent blue and easier, 38 red and 15 black, the joint seventh most even of the 55 resorts we cover. Its reds average 19.7 percent, against your 20.3, so the main course skis the same. And unlike Kitzbühel's, Madonna's area is one we can quote: three sectors joined by lift into 155 kilometres.

It carries a thread of Austrian history, too. Madonna was fashionable in the Habsburg era, when Austrian royalty came for the mountain air, and it has kept a smart pedestrian centre. Our read is smart and sociable, upmarket and good for families, with style, families and grooming on its list. The village is at 1,550 metres, 750 above Kitzbühel's, 61 percent of the piste we measure is above 1,800 metres, and the skiing tops out at 2,496 metres.

What you give up is the hard end and the noise. There are 17 kilometres of black, the second most of the Italian resorts we cover but half of Kitzbühel's, and only 18 percent of the piste is steeper than one in four, against 29. The evenings are civilised rather than late.

On paper Kronplatz is the least like Kitzbühel of the three: a modern, efficient resort on a perfectly groomed dome above the Puster valley, with grooming, families and museums on its list. Innsbruck is one of its airports, as it is for Kitzbühel, and the village is at 1,200 metres, 400 above yours.

But it is the pick for a Kitzbühel skier who goes for the steep. Forty-three percent of its piste is steeper than one in four, the joint second highest share of the 55 resorts we cover, against Kitzbühel's 29. Even the blues are steep: they average 20.2 percent, the steepest of the 55 we cover, and only 16 percent of the piste is gentler than 15 percent, the smallest share of the 55. The split is the fourth most even of the 55 resorts we cover, just behind Kitzbühel's: 47 percent blue and easier, 34 red and 18 black.

The trade is size. We measure 77 kilometres of piste around the village, with 14 of black against 34, and while 51 percent of the piste we measure is above 1,800 metres, the skiing tops out at 2,266 metres, 298 above yours and short of the height we look for before calling a resort snow sure. It is a short, sharp week rather than a long, roaming one.