The resort

Sestriere is a comune (municipality) of the Province of Turin. It is 17 km (11 miles) from the French border. Its name derives from Latin: ad petram sistrariam, which means sixty Roman miles from Turin.

It sits at the heart of one of Europes biggest ski areas known as the Via Lattea (Milky Way). There are 146 skiable pistes which together total 400 km of runs, of which 120 are provided with artificial snow.  Sestriere is also one of the few resorts where it is possible to ski at night on a floodlit run.

It regularly hosts Alpine Ski World Cup events but its biggest moment came when it was chosen as the centre for the alpine events in the 2006 Winter Olympic Games and the Winter Paralympics, hosting all the men’s alpine skiing competitions and being the site of one of the three Olympic Villages.

The two hotel towers that dominate the skyline have become the symbol of the village. They were built in the 1930s by FIAT’s founder Giovanni Agnelli to provide a holiday retreat for the workers in the FIAT factory down in Turin. One of these towers was part of the Olympic village housing the competitors.

It isn’t just a winter resort. In the summer it is possible to play golf on Europe’s highest 18-hole course and more recently it has seen a huge increase in the number of mountain bikers coming out to sample the slopes without the snow.  Sestriere is part of the Alpi bike resort which offers a concentrated mix of some of the best riding in Europe.

It is also a famous starting and arrival point in the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia. Notably, it was the scene of a definitive moment in Lance Armstrong career when he rode away from the field in a breakaway uphill finish to take the stage in the 1999 Tour de France, which was the first of his seven championships in that race.