Like Méribel, but in Italy: the circuit, the mountain or the village?

Méribel's trick is position: you sit in the middle and the whole area comes to you. Alta Badia does the same thing in the Dolomites. It is on the Sellaronda, the circuit you can ski round the Sella massif in a day, and from a base there around 500 kilometres is reachable by lift without a bus. You will see 1,200 kilometres quoted. That is the Dolomiti Superski pass across twelve areas, only four of them joined by lift, so treat it as a pass, not a ski area. Alta Badia's own sector is 130 kilometres.

The rest of the family week carries over well. Our read on Alta Badia is warm and welcoming and good for families, and it has 76 kilometres of blue and easier, the most of the 10 Italian resorts we cover. Forty percent of its piste is gentler than 15 percent, the joint fourth biggest share of the 55 resorts we cover, against Méribel's 32. The village sits at 1,568 metres, 118 above yours, and it is snow sure on our measure: 65 percent of the piste we measure is above 1,800 metres, up to 2,509. The food is the other reason people go back, from Ladin dishes in mountain huts to long lunches with a view, and the evenings are calm, with Corvara the village for a little more life.

The trade is the steep. Fifteen percent of the piste is steeper than one in four, less than half Méribel's share, and there are 7.5 kilometres of black against 30. The reds average 21.7 percent against 25.4. The Gran Risa above La Villa is the steep showpiece, but the character is cruising. A family of cruisers will love it. The parent who spends Méribel afternoons on the blacks will need the wider circuit.

Our matching puts Sestriere closer to Méribel than any other Italian resort we cover, and the measurements say it is the shape of the mountain. Thirty percent of the piste is steeper than one in four, against Méribel's 31, and 35 percent is gentler than 15 percent, against 32. We measure 160 kilometres of piste around it, the most of the 10 Italian resorts we cover, and it has the most black of them too, 18 kilometres, and the most marked off piste itinerary, 10.8 kilometres, twice Méribel's.

It also puts the village far higher than yours. It sits at 2,035 metres, the fourth highest of the 55 resorts we cover and 585 above Méribel's, and it is snow sure on our measure: 91 percent of the piste we measure is above 1,800 metres, up to 2,788 metres, 103 short of Méribel's top. The skiing is part of the Via Lattea, a linked area quoted at 400 kilometres. That figure includes Montgenèvre, which needs the international pass. On the Italian pass it is about 305, our own subtraction rather than a published number.

What you give up is the village and some of the easy skiing. Our read on Sestriere is high and practical, a purpose built resort rather than a pretty one, and it does not carry the family label Méribel does. There are 50 kilometres of blue and easier, about a third of Méribel's green and blue. What blues there are run gentle, averaging 12.0 percent, the second gentlest of the 55 resorts we cover. It is a Méribel week for a group that comes for the skiing, not the chalet.

If the part of Méribel you would miss is the village itself, Madonna di Campiglio is the Italian answer. Our read is smart and sociable, an upmarket family resort with a pedestrian centre under the pale towers of the Brenta Dolomites, and evenings built around an aperitivo rather than a dance floor. It sits at 1,550 metres, 100 above Méribel, and its skiing is one linked area of 155 kilometres across three sectors, joined by lift. We measure 115 kilometres around the village, and 17 kilometres of black, the second most of the 10 Italian resorts we cover. The grooming is a point of pride.

The trade is the gradient and the height. Eighteen percent of the piste is steeper than one in four, against 31, and the reds average 19.7 percent against Méribel's 25.4, so even a confident skier will find it a cruising mountain. There are 54 kilometres of blue and easier. On snow it sits right on our line: 61 percent of the piste we measure is above 1,800 metres, and the skiing tops out at 2,496 metres, just 4 short of the 2,500 we look for. Close enough that we would not lean on it either way.