Sestriere in Italy is the highest-altitude ski resort in the extensive Via Lattea (Milky Way) linked ski area, and boasts an impressive pedigree in Alpine winter-sports history as one of the world’s first purpose-built ski resorts.

Founded in the 1930s, Sestriere was one of the world’s very first purpose-designed ski resorts, created and largely financed under the original direction of Giovanni Agnelli, founder of the Fiat industrial empire, whose vision was to build a world-class ski resort within easy reach of his home city of Turin.

Nowadays a principal station of the huge Via Lattea (Milky Way) ski domain which straddles the Italian-French border and stretches across 400km of lift-linked pistes, Sestriere is still arguably this region’s most upmarket resort; it is also the most reliably snow-sure of all the resorts in the Milky Way, and it presents the strongest all-round resort choice for beginners and keen intermediates planning to visit this easily accessible and interesting corner of Italy.