Like Verbier, but in Italy: swap the late night for the long lunch

Our matching puts Cortina nearer to Verbier than any other Italian resort we cover, and second nearest of all 55 we cover. It is the size that matches first: we measure 85.5 kilometres of piste around the town, against Verbier's 97. Then the crowd. Cortina is upmarket and stylish by our read, an old Italian town with a pedestrian main street, host of the 1956 Winter Olympics and of the 2026 Games, and the nearest of the three to Verbier's chic.

It is also the steeper mountain of the three picks, and steeper than Verbier. A quarter of the piste is steeper than one in four, against 19 percent, and the blacks average 32.5 percent, against Verbier's 29.0. The lifts reach 3,028 metres by our measure, the second highest top of the Italian resorts we cover and 255 below Verbier's, 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.

And it has the most off piste of the three: 9.2 kilometres of marked itinerary, the second most of the Italian resorts we cover, with the longest running 4.5 kilometres from Faloria back to Cortina. That is still only about a third of Verbier's.

What you give up is the late night and the joined up mountain. Evenings here are an aperitivo on the Corso Italia and a stroll before a long dinner, not a club until three. Cortina's own areas are not all linked, so a bus or a car is part of the day. And the town sits at 1,224 metres, 276 below Verbier's, so the snow lives up the hill rather than at the door.

If what you actually ski at Verbier, most hours of most days, is long and easy piste, Val Gardena is the Italian match, and it is gentler still. Forty percent of its piste is gentler than 15 percent, the joint most of the Italian resorts we cover. Only 13 percent is steeper than one in four, the second smallest share of the 55 we cover, and its reds average 17.3 percent, the third gentlest of the 55. The blues, at 12.8 percent, are close to Verbier's 11.5.

There is more of it, too. We measure 145 kilometres around the village, about half as much again as Verbier's 97, with 16.4 kilometres of black. Val Gardena's own sector is 175 kilometres, and it sits on the Sella Ronda, where roughly 500 kilometres is reachable by lift from a base on the circuit. That figure is our own approximate sum, not a published one, and the 1,200 kilometres on the Dolomiti Superski pass covers twelve areas, only four of them joined by lift.

Our read on Val Gardena is scenic and traditional, a classic Dolomite valley, with its village at 1,563 metres, 63 above Verbier's. It is snow sure on our measure: 66 percent of the piste we measure is above 1,800 metres, and the lifts reach 2,731, which is 552 below Verbier's top, though the highest piste we measure starts at 2,480. The trade is the edge: 2.6 kilometres of itinerary, and none of Verbier's lively streak.

Alta Badia is the next valley round the same circuit, on the same pass, and the pick if the long lunch matters as much as the skiing. Its mountain food is the reason many people go. It has the same 40 percent of gentle piste and 76.4 kilometres of blue and easier, about twice Verbier's, and its village sits at 1,568 metres. But its skiing stops at 2,509 metres, 774 below Verbier's top, with 0.6 kilometres of itinerary and 7.5 of black. It makes a lovely family week, but it is not much like Verbier.