Like La Plagne, but in Italy: the easy skiing or the height?

Our matching puts Sestriere closer to La Plagne than any other Italian resort we cover, and second closest of all the resorts we cover. Like La Plagne it is purpose built and modern, practical by our read, with value on its list. The village sits at 2,035 metres, 235 above La Plagne's, the second highest of the Italian resorts we cover. It is snow sure on our measure, with more to spare than La Plagne: 91 percent of the piste we measure is above 1,800 metres, up to 2,788. And 160 kilometres around the village is the most piste we measure at any Italian resort we cover.

Read the area figure slowly. The Via Lattea, the Milky Way, is quoted at 400 kilometres, a long standing marketing number that includes Montgenèvre in France. The standard pass covers only the Italian lifts, roughly 305 kilometres by our own subtraction, since nobody publishes that figure. The number to trust is ours: 160 kilometres around the village, against 202.5 around La Plagne.

What you give up is the easy ground, and the family feel: family is not on Sestriere's list. Only 31 percent of its piste is blue and easier, 50 kilometres against La Plagne's 128 of green and blue. The blues themselves are kind, averaging 12.0 percent, the gentlest of any Italian resort we cover and the second gentlest of the 55, but there are few of them. Most of the mountain is red, 92 kilometres or 58 percent, and 30 percent of the piste is steeper than one in four, against La Plagne's 27.

For a group of confident intermediates, that is no hardship. Sestriere also has 18 kilometres of black, the most of the Italian resorts we cover, and 10.8 kilometres of marked off piste itinerary, also the most of the Italian resorts we cover and more than three times La Plagne's 3.0. For a family with a first timer in it, it is a long week on not much blue.

If La Plagne, for you, means a family skiing blue runs together in the sun, Alta Badia is the Italian version. Forty percent of its piste is gentler than 15 percent, against La Plagne's 39: as big a gentle share as any Italian resort we cover, and joint fourth of the 55 we cover. Its 76.4 kilometres of blue and easier is the most of any Italian resort we cover, about three fifths of La Plagne's easy total. And it is a family resort by our read, warm and welcoming, spread along a valley of five Ladin speaking villages, from Corvara, the liveliest, to San Cassiano, the most refined. Lunch on the mountain is half the reason to go.

The size is real but comes in pieces. Alta Badia's own sector is 130 kilometres, and we measure 124.5 around the village. Join the Sella Ronda and roughly 500 kilometres is within reach by lift, a figure we have added up ourselves from measured kilometres, not a published one. The 1,200 kilometres on the Dolomiti Superski pass spans twelve areas, only four of them joined by lift, so it is not a linked area in the way Paradiski is.

The trade is height and the steep end. The village is 232 metres lower than La Plagne's, and the skiing tops out at 2,509 metres, 513 below. It still passes our snow sure test: 65 percent of the piste we measure is above 1,800 metres, against 80. The black, though, almost disappears: 7.5 kilometres against 28, and only 15 percent of the piste is steeper than one in four. The strongest skier in your family will want a day or two away on the Sella Ronda.

Madonna di Campiglio is the pick if what you value in La Plagne is a single linked area with something at every level. Its three sectors are all joined by lift, 155 kilometres on one pass, a figure we hold with confidence. It is a family resort by our read too, but a smart and sociable one, upmarket where La Plagne is practical, with a pedestrian centre under the Brenta Dolomites and a name for its grooming.

The mix keeps the good skier in your group busier than Alta Badia would. There are 17.3 kilometres of black, the second most of the Italian resorts we cover, and they average 30.2 percent, steeper than La Plagne's 25.5. Meanwhile 36 percent of the piste is gentler than 15 percent, close to La Plagne's 39, and the blues average 12.9 percent against 15.5, so the easy runs are easier still.

What you give up is height and scale. The village is at 1,550 metres, 250 below La Plagne's, and the skiing tops out at 2,496 metres by our measure, 526 lower. With 61 percent of the piste above 1,800 metres, it sits right on the edge of what we call snow sure, and we would rather not call it either way. We measure 115 kilometres around the village, a little over half of La Plagne's. And where La Plagne sells on value, Madonna sells on polish.