Has anyone been to Pila?

[Muchtoomuchtodo]

What did you think?
Is there enough skiing to keep decent skiers busy and interested for a week?
What are the mountain restaurants like price wise?

I was there in January as my son is doing a season there. The pistes are lovely but not sure there's enough for a week. If you drive there are a couple of other resorts handy. Eg La Thuile is just down the road. I found it to have fewer mountain restaurants than some of the other resorts we've been too. We stayed down in Aosta and got the gondola up every day. Lots of lovely restaurants in Aosta for the evening.

Prices were same as most Italian resorts. You can get a decent lunch for 15-20 euros.

Thanks. That’s really useful. We would be staying in Pila not Aosta

I was in Pila earlier this season. Great snow and seems quite snow sure.

Enough skiing to keep most people happy for a week, but probably not enough for intermediates and above to return. As a lower intermediate I found it fantastic and would happily go back.

Lunch prices fairly reasonable, it's very hearty food a surprise to me in Italy as the main specialty is a cabbage, cheese and bread soup. Our hotel food at Lion Noir wasn't brilliant but there was a lot of it.

Definitely stay in Pila not Aosta as it's a 20 minute gondola to get there.

With a weeks lift pass you get a free day or two elsewhere. Cormayeur is the closest and gorgeous. Pila is small but quite varied

We were going to go for 4 days just as we went into lock down and had to cancel. My friend went with her daughter and said it was weekend only size.

I like novelty, and, I’d have done almost every run in the first day, so by day 4 I’d want something new. I do ski pretty hard compared to lots of people.

It’s got 70km of piste
We can cover 50km in a day, so perhaps a bit more than the piste map looks.

We stayed in Aosta last year and had done Pila thoroughly in 2 days so travelled to Courmayeur, La Thuile and Crevacol. The snow was terrible, which didn't help as the runs on both sides of the map were closed, but we are only competent intermediates and I wouldn't go back. Very busy at half term with British groups so avoid that if possible. We had to eat in Pila as we had a non-skier so can't comment on mountain restaurants but the resort ones were reasonable.

Yes, DH and I went there exactly 20yrs ago, but it feels far more recent! Clearly things may well have changed! At that time, we were told it was just opening to British tour operators, so a new resort on their books. We found staff/shop keepers spoke more French than English (other than Italian)- but again, that was many years ago.

DH and I are are advanced skiiers, but enjoy easier runs and not seeking black runs every time. I recall the whole area was fairly small and vaguely think we'd done each lift by day 2. Lots of pine trees, smaller, narrow runs rather than massive, wide, groomed slopes. There was a gondola to Aosta town, which we caught and went for lunch and a wander. We travelled as part of a package deal. 1 day we were taken to La Thuile which had much wider, exposed runs, plus we could ski into La Rosier in France. Spending the day in Aosta and also La Thuile broke up the trip a bit. Otherwise, 7 days in Pila might have been a bit monotonous for us, as lovely as it was.