In fairy tales, the Snow Queen is a powerful character that travels the world and has a palace in a land supported by permafrost. She is not the Snow Queen who would be interested in winter holiday fun. Skiers rarely pay attention to her, but rather, they focus more on her namesake. In skiing, there is a Snow Queen on Italy's Aosta Valley near the Swiss border. The Queen of Snow is not a person. It is the ski area on the Breuil-Cervinia Valtournenche, where new ski resorts are being improved every year to provide the most exciting and fulfilling skiing holiday near the Mount Matterhorn.



The Breuil ? Cervinia Valtournenche ski region, nicknamed as the Queen of Snow, begins at 1,524 meters above sea level in a picturesque small town named Valtournenche. Then, the area of this encompassing ski resort expands upward to include the cluster of charming village hamlets of Breuil ? Cervinia and the Plateau Ros?, which is already at 3,480 meters high. Cervinia is the more commonly known name of the village today, but in the 1930s, it was once called the Breuil. Thus, many Italians decided to use both names and called it Breuil ? Cervinia. The Queen of Snow region, with its constellation of ski resorts, also reaches the 4,000-meter-high zenith of Piccolo Cervino and the 4,478-meter-high the great Matterhorn.

The skiers who found accommodations in the new ski resorts within the Breuil ? Cervinia Valtournenche region will be delighted to know that they have access to more than 250 total kilometers of slopes and ski runs. In Cervinia alone, skiers will be thrilled by over 110 kilometers of downhill pistes and more than 16 kilometers of cross-country ski routes. The beginners should be cautious, however, in taking these runs because they might be easy to defeat but they are tremendously long.

Intermediate and expert skiers will have much pleasure in these long ski runs, which are extensively connected to each other. These ski runs also have excellent snow conditions because of the sheer height of the ski area. If these facts are not enough to tempt you, the skiers with international ski passes can easily cross the Swiss border and meet the challenge of the Zermatt slopes.

Besides skiing, the new ski resorts of the Breuil ? Cervinia Valtournenche offer fun apres ski, other exciting winter sports, and various holiday activities. The region has no shortage of restaurants, pizzerias, pubs and bars, and discos. Most of the ski resorts in the region have facilities for ice-skating, bowling, tennis, gold, paragliding, horseback riding, and indoor swimming. For skiers who appreciate luxury resort amenities, they will be pleasantly surprised at the state-of-the-art equipment of the fitness gyms and the saunas. For skiers who want to take a break from the slopes, they can visit the museums or go to the Valtournenche Square where they can appreciate the way the locals celebrate the town's proud mountaineering tradition.

The network of ski resorts offers a variety of accommodations, ranging from hotels to apartments, and to private houses. To reach these ski resorts in the Queen of Snow skiing region, skiers may take the plane and land on the Turin International Airport and then ride on a bus. The skiers may also take a train ride, especially when they are coming in from the UK. If the British skiers wanted to drive their own car, they must also plan for the car's ferry ride across the English Channel.