It has some of the sunniest slopes in the Alps, its food and wine are among the finest in Europe and next month it will host the Winter Olympics. So why do so few Britons buy ski property in Italy? It is a question that Rob Kols, 51, an insurance broker from Lancashire, often asks himself. He and his wife, Gillian, 44, initially intended to invest in Austria, but three years ago while driving through Val Camonica, a broad valley north of Verona, they were so impressed by what they saw that they decided to buy there instead.
Their first purchase — a two-bedroom 50sq m flat (540sq ft), complete with underground garage in a small three-storey development, in the sleepy village of Vezza d’Oglio on the edge of a national park — cost them just £103,000. Several months later, they bought a second flat in the same block for £89,000.
Although they currently use their flats for holidays and rent them out, the Kols are so keen on the combination of Italian rural charm and excellent skiing that they might even move there permanently when their children, Natalie, 14, and Belinda, 12, finish school — that is, if the lure of their other holiday home, in Spain, does not prove stronger.
“Vezza d’Oglio has a beautiful square, a big 1,000-year-old church, and it’s like going back in time: you still go to the baker for your bread and the butcher for your meat. It’s like paradise,” says Kols. “It’s a great place to chill out after a stressful week. You can nip here for a weekend so easily from the UK. It’s a doddle to get to.”
Kols is right to see himself as a pioneer. Although Britons have been buying in Chiantishire and other parts of rural Italy for years, when it comes to a place in the mountains they seem strangely reluctant to venture beyond France, Austria and Switzerland.
“When people think of Italy, they think of Tuscany, the ‘new Tuscanys’ like Umbria and Le Marche, or of Venice, Rome or Puglia,” says John Rennie, founder of Key Italy, a Guernsey-based property agency. “People think of very sunny, medieval hill towns and rolling green hills. They don’t consider skiing, despite the fact that there is some pretty good value there.”
The Kolses’ experience shows what people are missing. Their village, which lies 3,600ft above sea level, will benefit from the opening this November of a new chairlift linking Ponte di Legno, six miles up the valley, with nearby Temu and Passo del Tonale, giving easy access to more than 87 miles of slopes.
Just over an hour and a half’s drive from Bergamo airport, Vezza d’Oglio lies almost in the middle of Italy’s Alpine resorts, which stretch along the northern border from France to Slovenia. The resorts fall broadly into four groups that, over time, have come to cater to skiers from different Italian cities and regions.
The villages around Vezza d’Oglio, for example, are a natural winter playground for the no-nonsense industrialists of Bergamo and Brescia, who built their wealth on the ironworks of the Val Trompia, and were responsible, among other things, for the Beretta pistol.
Madonna di Campiglio, the best known village of the bunch, is an upmarket resort with an affluent, almost exclusively Italian clientele, and property prices to match. A smallish two- bed flat in the heart of the resort would cost just over £200,000, but prices fall back sharply in nearby Folgarida.
Those looking for bargains will go to Passo del Tonale, a windswept, purpose-built resort 6,117ft above sea level, whose utilitarian architecture would not be out of place in a Russian provincial town. Desolate in summer, it is just about tolerable once it has a good dusting of snow, but the skiing, at more than 8,850ft — or more than 9,800ft on the Presena glacier — is excellent.
Prices are correspondingly low: Agenzia Tremonti, which covers the Val Camonica, has a two-bed flat for just £51,600, but don’t expect to bump into any celebrities when you go for your après-ski aperitivo.
By contrast, you will find it difficult to avoid them in Cortina d’Ampezzo, a winding 150-mile drive east. To Britons of a certain age, the name will be forever linked with a utilitarian 1960s Ford, but for Italians, Cortina has long been a byword for drop-dead chic.
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Known as the Queen of the Dolomites, it is a place where the panache with which you negotiate designer boutiques on your evening passeggiata is every bit as important as your technique on the slopes. Don’t even think of coming here without packing your fur coat and diamonds. Pope John Paul II was a frequent visitor to the area, though he went to quieter, nearby Lorenzago di Cadore.
If Cortina’s atmosphere is very Gstaad or St Moritz, then so are the property prices. At first glance, it looks as if the estate agent has added an extra zero by mistake. A smallish two-bed flat in a good location could set you back more than £600,000 — enough to buy a whole street in Vezza d’Oglio. Don’t even ask the price of a chalet.
While Cortina is a favourite with wealthy Romans, their Milanese counterparts make for the western alpine resorts of the Val d’Aosta, in the shadow of Mont Blanc, where Italy, France and Switzerland meet. Val d’Aosta was once part of the French-speaking principality of Savoy, and the French influence is strong, especially on the food.
Courmayeur, a picturesque village just on the other side of the tunnel from Chamonix, is probably the classiest resort: on winter weekends, sections of Milanese society decamp here, staying in apartments or houses either rented for the season or which have been in the family for years. A modest one-bedder in a good location here will cost more than £300,000.
During the Olympics, the spotlight will be turned on the Piedmont region, further southwest. The local capital, Turin, where the opening and closing ceremonies, as well as the figure-skating will be held, is a grand if somewhat austere city with a very different atmosphere from Florence or Rome, let alone Naples. The surrounding resorts offer some of the best skiing in the country — helped by the more than £130m that has been pumped into the area by the government as part of Italy ’s preparations for the Games.
The ambience varies from the picturesque to the almost industrial. Sestriere, which will be used for the prestigious downhill races, is definitely in the latter category. Founded in the 1930s by Giovanni Agnelli, the Fiat boss, it is one of the earliest and highest purpose-built ski stations in the Alps, with northwest-facing slopes and extensive snow-making facilities in case erratic snowfall lets it down. It would be an understatement to say the town, composed almost entirely of rectangular concrete apartment blocks and hotels, is not one of Italy’s most charming. The only real landmark is the circular hotel tower personally designed by Agnelli. Property prices are reasonable, at about £2,700 per sq m.
It is the quality and sheer quantity of skiing that attracts people to Sestriere. The resort is the gateway to the Via Lattea (Milky Way) circuit, which offers 250 miles of slopes — the second largest ski region in Europe after France’s Trois Vallées. Villages along it include the unpronounceable Sauze d’Oulx (Sowzee doo is a close approximation) — whose centre is lined with bars offering widescreen Sky Sports and cheap Guinness — and Claviere, one of Italy’s oldest ski resorts, which hosts the training facilities for the Olympic alpine and cross-country skiing.
Those who want part of the Olympics, literally, will make for nearby Pragelato, host of the cross-country ski and Nordic combined events, as well as the ski-jumping. A few miles along the valley from the village is a new five-star complex of 205 one-, two- and three-bed chalets, complete with spa, restaurants, shopping centre, children’s village and summer as well as winter sports.
The properties will house television crews during the Games, but 85 or so will be sold off afterwards at prices from £257,000, with the remainder becoming a five-star hotel. A link to the Via Lattea is provided by a new £4m, 60-person cable car: a six-minute ride will take you from outside the complex directly to the middle of what will be the men’s downhill slope at the Olympics.
“Piedmont, as a region, is full of beautiful old villages, culture, wine and food, but we did some investigation into the quality of accommodation already available in the region, and it was all pretty bad,” says Alistair Tidy, a Dublin-based businessman who is a leading member of the consortium behind the £55m Pragelato project.
“This is a high-end project,” he says. “There is no doubt we are really bringing a new product to the region.” But will it be enough to persuade those reluctant Brits to look again at Italy?
To book the Kolses’ flat, call 01457 878 847 or e-mail kolsnat1@aol.com
On the Market
On the edge of the ski slopes in Sestriere, this three-bed apartment has two bathrooms, five balconies and covered parking. It is £380,000 with Key Italy, 020 8693 4733, www.keyitaly.com
A 90-minute drive from Turin, chalet apartments at the Pragelato resort cost from £255,000 for a one-bed duplex to £620,000 for three beds, with RH International, 020 7491 9791, www.pragelatoresort.com
In Ponte di Legno, the 12 one- to three-bed apartments at Petite Maison will be ready in May. They cost from £120,000 to £243,000, with Agenzia Tremonti, 00 39 036 492 859, www.agenziatremonti.it
This one-bedroom ski house in Gignese, Piedmont, within easy reach of the slopes, is £65,000. A garage is also available, for an extra £10,500, through Key Italy, 020 8693 4733, www.keyitaly.com
