Madonna di Campiglio

Free, and worth knowing

The eighteen marked winter walking routes. The tourist board publishes a snow excursions map with eighteen marked and maintained winter routes, free, signposted and walkable without a guide. They run from an hour and a half out and back on the Sentiero dei Siori from the middle of the village, to five hundred metres of climbing up to the Dossi di Vagliana, with most somewhere between: two hours to the Lago di Nambino, two hours forty to Malga Ritorto.

Carnevale Asburgico. The distinctive thing about Campiglio, and the street half of it is free. The Habsburg court arrives in period costume and processes through the village squares, there is a children's carnival in Piazza Sissi, and the ski instructors bring the week to a close with a torchlit descent. Dates for 2027 are confirmed and it is a Sunday to Friday, 7 to 12 February.

The free rooms and reading points. Two free heated rooms for anybody travelling with a baby, one in each valley. The Campiglio one is on the second floor of the Centro Rainalter, in the Sala della Cultura, with changing space and room to play, and the key is collected from the info point. The Pinzolo one is at the Casa della Cultura e del Sociale and adds somewhere to warm baby food. There is a free reading point at the Chalet Laghetto in Campiglio on top of that, and another at Carisolo run by the Adamello Brenta nature park.

The free avalanche kit at Groste. There is an ARTVA training camp up at Groste by the Rifugio Graffer, and the transceiver, probe and shovel are lent out free for use on the practice ground. It is a better hour than it sounds for anybody thinking about going off piste later in the week, and the kit is proper Ortovox rather than something kept in a box.

Free with a pass you already hold. Three things come with the ticket and nobody advertises them. Scia Prima opens the lifts early, from half past seven or eight, across the Christmas and February weeks at no extra charge. The Vagliana slope at Groste shuts at midday, gets groomed again and reopens around one, which is the most useful hour of the day up there. And both snowparks are included, the Ursus at Groste with more than forty features across roughly a hundred thousand square metres, and the Mini Ursus at Pradalago off the Zeledria Express for smaller riders.

A few of the rest

The Monte Spinale toboggan run. The flagship, and it is a proper run rather than a slope with a rope tow beside it. Two thousand seven hundred metres from the top of the Spinale gondola down through meadow and forest past Malga Fevri to the foot of the Fevri chairlift, dropping three hundred and forty metres, on an average gradient of twelve per cent. 20 to 50 euros.

Snowshoeing with the guides, and the hut dinner walk. Guide Alpine Campiglio run eighteen snowshoe itineraries out of an office on via Campanil Basso, all graded easy, spread across the Brenta, the Presanella and the Val Brenta. The one to book is the evening walk with dinner in a baita: meet at six, about three hours on the snow, back around ten, and they book the hut for you. Snowshoes, poles and a headtorch are handed over at the office. 20 to 50 euros.

Dolomiti Natural Wellness walks. Short guided walks built around being outside rather than around covering ground, every Monday on the Piana di Nambino, with occasional Friday extras down at the Castagneto di Carisolo. Twenty five euros a head, or five if you are staying in one of the member hotels. Places are limited and booking shuts at five the evening before. 20 to 50 euros.