San Domenico Italy

San Domenico Alpe Ciamporino ski area is located 2.5 Hours north of Milan Airport in the Province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola. Also refered to as the Italian Piedmont region.

From the Swiss side, not far from Zermatt, is the medieval town of Brig, Switzerland. From here, one can cross over the twisty Simplon Pass Road to San Domenico or board a car train and ride the rail car through the Simplon Pass Rail Tunnel to San Domenico. We enjoyed the car train with our rental car, a 20-minute ride in the dark in your car, for about $27 Swiss Francs.

Driving up to San Domenico is a crazy steep, narrow road with too many switchbacks to count, and many portions where just oen car can pass. We can’t imagine this mountain road in the snow or a busy weekend of traffic.

Arriving in this quiet ski town of San Domenico, there’s a haunting feeling that, despite its revitalization since 2009, many chalets and old hotels remain shuttered. We later learned the ski area was all but abandoned before 2009. But then we pulled into the modern chic Hotel La Vetta, our mountain lodging, which is owned by San Domenico ski resort.

San Domenico ski experience begins with a gorgeous Bartholet gondola, a Porsche-designed cabin lift from a modern base building. There’s free underground parking here too. San Domenico skiing sits on the flanks of the 2551-meter Pizzo Dosso. The beginner area, ski school, and easier slopes, with a long covered magic carpet, are at the top of the gondola, at Alpe Ciamporino (2000-meters, 6,500′). From here, two quad chairs take you to the upper mountain and valley runs, and a Snowpark for freeriding.

Ciamporino Dosso is a bubble-covered two-stage quad up to the Dosso peak and half a dozen intermediate and expert trails. The views are magnificent in the steep canyon. Skiing down to the modern Bondolero six-person bubble-lift offers more terrain, and lots of easy-to-reach off-piste bowls with good snow.

San Domenico is popular with locals from Preglia, Locarno, and the Italian lakes region, plus folks from Milan, they call it “Sando” affectionately. There’s an Italian vibe, with Ski Polizia who stop together for coffee and cigarettes, but you’d better be wearing your ski helmet- now mandatory when skiing in Italy, or a $200 Eu fine and you lose your ski pass!

On mountain dining at San Domenico, there’s a basic but cozy chalet atop the Ciamporino lift, self-serve with a bar, coffees and sandwiches. At the Gondola summit is Refugio 2000 – another self-service restaurant with pasta and daily dishes cafeteria- style, and a full bar. All Sando’s food concessions are resort-owned, with sun terraces for those sunny ski days. Its too bad there’s no charming Italian chalet dining on mountain.

Aside from skiing and snowboarding, San Domenico offers opportunities for tobogganing – they call it sledging, snowshoeing, and winter hiking trails.

San Domenico has invested $80 million (since 2009) in lifts, snowmaking, and the Hotel La Vetta… but the ski village lacks services, no grocery market, ski shop, only a three restaurants, and not a typical alpine village vibe, yet. In fact, its weird, with huge potential… but a vacuous feeling as there are few authentic locals – we were told just 10 people actually live here year-round, not including employees.

We loved our stay at Hotel La Vetta, with a beautiful Deluxe suite, and views of impressive Italian peaks from our balcony of Terra Rossa and Monte Leone, and magnificent stars at night in the clean mountain air. La Vetta’s posh lounge for apertivo each evening, and excellent cuisine served in the mod hotel restaurant or cozier Stube, were perfect apres ski. La Vetta has wooden outdoor saunas to reserve too. A grand breakfast buffet was included in our stay, before heading out to our ski locker, then proceeding to our five-minute walk down the main Via Alpe Veglia street to the gondola.

This Italian mountain resort in the heart of the Southern Alps is special, very unique, with interesting but limited terrain, and panoramic views. San Domenico is a small, but big mountain, Italian ski resort on the Magic Pass, along with 99 ski resorts primarily in Switzerland.

Skiing San Domenico is quite affordable for day tickets too, with a half day $32 Eu ticket, or $36 for the day. San Domenico surprisingly has night skiing on the lower gondola for just $12 Eu on certain Saturdays.

You could ski San Domencio for a “taste of Italy” on a Swiss ski safari, including the nearby, two hours away, Valais Wallis with ski areas of Grimentz Zinal, Anzerre, Leukerbad, Lauchernalp, and many others.

San Domenico Ski Resort Ski Stats:
Elevation: 1420 – 2500 M – 8,202′
Vertical Drop: 1080 M – 3,543′
Lifts: 4 plus two beginner magic carpets.
Trails: 43 km and a Snowpark for freeriding