Things to do in Madonna di Campiglio: walks, sledges and dinner by snowcat
More than its smart centre suggests, and much of it is free: eighteen marked winter walks, the Habsburg carnival in the squares and both snowparks on your pass. For anyone not skiing, the Monte Spinale toboggan run is the morning to do and the sled dogs are a walk from the village. Dinner in a hut, up by snowcat, is the evening.
Madonna di Campiglio made its name with the Habsburg court and has never quite let it go. Off the skis it is a village for walking: a pedestrian centre, a long coffee, the pale towers of the Brenta Dolomites over the rooftops. It suits families and anyone not skiing, because the middle is free of traffic and most of what is worth doing is close.
Start with what is free. The tourist board marks eighteen winter walks, and route eleven, the Sentiero dell'Arciduca from Palu into Vallesinella, is the one to know. In carnival week the Habsburg court parades through the squares in costume, and watching costs nothing. Parents of babies get a heated room at the Centro Rainalter, and at Groste the avalanche kit is lent free, an hour well spent before anybody heads off piste.
For anyone not skiing, the Monte Spinale toboggan run is the morning to do: a proper run through meadow and forest, with the chairlift back up as often as you like. Bring boots with a stiff sole rather than ski boots, because you brake with your feet. The sled dogs on the Piana di Nambino are five minutes from the village, and on the short outing you drive the sled yourself. With small children, the Ice Park on the frozen lake is the easy afternoon: one ticket, in and out all day. If the weather closes in, the hotel spas take people who are not staying, and Carisolo, down the valley, has a climbing wall.
Evenings are civilised rather than loud, and the best of them happen up the hill. Most of the huts that do dinner will fetch you by snowcat, and at Rifugio Lago Nambino you snowshoe in. Book the huts well ahead at Christmas and in February.
Free, and worth knowing
Marked winter walks, a carnival you watch from the street, a warm room for anyone with a baby, and avalanche kit lent out to practise with.
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.
Route eleven is the one to know about. The Sentiero dell'Arciduca climbs from Palu into Vallesinella and is named for Archduke Albrecht, so it is the free way to touch the Habsburg story in any week of the winter rather than only in carnival week.
Starts spread across Madonna di Campiglio, Campo Carlo Magno, Sant'Antonio di Mavignola and Carisolo
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 ticketed half is worth knowing about even though none of it is priced yet. You can ski with the imperial court in costume on the Sciata Asburgica, take tea with Sissi in the Salone Hofer of the Hotel Des Alpes alongside a historian and a costume specialist, or go to the Gran Ballo dell'Imperatore in the same room. Book the ball the moment the programme lands, because it sold out in 2026.
The village squares, Madonna di Campiglio
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.
Centro Rainalter, Madonna di Campiglio, and the Casa della Cultura, Pinzolo
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.
Near Rifugio Graffer, Groste
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.
On the mountain
A real toboggan run through the forest, dogs you can drive yourself, and the huts that send a snowcat down for dinner.
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 · Top of the Spinale gondola. Tickets and sledge hire at the gondola ticket office, sledge reservations through Olimpionico Sport, sledge boots and helmets from Noleggio Des Alpes at the gondola base · Their page
Sleddog on the Piana di Nambino
Athabaska keep their dogs on the Nambino plain, five minutes from the middle of the village, which makes this one of the few dog sledding operations in the Alps you can walk to. The excursion is about four kilometres behind a team of six to eight dogs and opens with an introduction to them. The battesimo is the short one, an hour, and you drive the sled yourself with three or four dogs and an instructor at your shoulder.
Price on request · Piana di Nambino, five minutes from the centre
Dinner in a hut, and the snowcat up to it
Ten huts take dinner bookings across the sectors and most of them send a snowcat down for you. Rifugio Graffer at Groste does dinner every evening on booking and is reached by snowmobile, snowcat or skins. Cascina Zeledria at Pradalago, Malga Montagnoli and Malga Ritorto all run the snowcat, and Chalet Spinale is simply up the Spinale lift.
Price on request
In the village
A rink on the frozen lake that works with small children, and the hotel spas that let people in who are not staying.
The Ice Park on the frozen lake
The village lake freezes and becomes an outdoor rink on via Monte Spinale, a few minutes from the middle of Campiglio. The ticket is a day ticket with no time limit on it, in and out as often as you like, which is the detail that makes it work with small children who last forty minutes at a stretch. Skate hire sits inside the adult price.
Under 20 euros · Via Monte Spinale 12, Madonna di Campiglio · Their page
The hotel spas
This is where Campiglio's wellness offer actually lives, and the list is long. The tourist board keeps a register of hotel spas that take people who are not staying: the Alpen Suite, Cerana Relax, the Chalet del Sogno, Majestic Mountain Charme, Hotel Gianna, the Design Oberosler pool, Rosengarten Dolomiti Spa and the Ambiez Residence, which opens its doors in the afternoons.
Price on request · Across Madonna di Campiglio, with more down at Pinzolo including the Lefay
Nearby
Down the valley by skibus or across the ski area on a pass, for paragliding, more spas and beginners' fields.
Pinzolo and Carisolo, down the valley
Pinzolo sits at the bottom of the Val Rendena and is linked into the ski area by the Pinzolo Campiglio Express. What is down there that is not up here: paragliding off the Doss del Sabion at two thousand one hundred metres, reached by a twenty minute cable car ride, a restaurant at the top of that same cable car, hotel spas including the Lefay, beginners' fields at the top of the Pra Rodont gondola, and a second free Baby Little Room.
20 to 50 euros · Skibus line 5, or across the ski area on a pass
These are our own picks, not paid placements. Prices and opening times change, so it is always worth checking before you set off.