Alternatives to Cortina d'Ampezzo: every alpine town in the north above a thousand metres

Sappada

Province: Udine · 1,250 m

1h 6m from Cortina d'Ampezzo by car

A German-speaking alpine village at 1,250 meters near the source of the Piave, settled from East Tyrol in the eleventh century and Italian since 1852.

Rocca Pietore

Province: Belluno · 1,143 m

42m from Cortina d'Ampezzo by car

An Agordino borgo at 1,143 meters under the Marmolada, where the Pettorina cuts a two-kilometer gorge through 100-meter rock walls.

Usseaux

Province: Torino · 1,416 m

A Val Chisone village at 1,416 meters with four scattered borgate and more than forty murals painted across the stone facades.

Etroubles

Province: Aosta Valley · 1,280 m

A 478-person Alpine village at 1,280 metres, with an open-air contemporary art museum and the region's first dairy.

Alagna Valsesia

Province: Vercelli · 1,191 m

A Walser village at 1,191 meters, at the head of the Valsesia, known to off-piste skiers worldwide.

Luserna

Province: Trento · 1,333 m

3h 15m from Cortina d'Ampezzo by car

A Cimbrian island at 1,333 metres on the Alpe Cimbra plateau, the last village in Italy where the medieval Bavarian dialect is still spoken at home.

Kastelruth

Province: Bolzano · 1,060 m

1h 45m from Cortina d'Ampezzo by car

South Tyrolean village on a shelf below the Sciliar, eighty-two-metre bell tower over the square, home of the Kastelruther Spatzen.

Limone Piemonte

Province: Cuneo · 1,000 m

A ski village at 1,000 meters in the Vermenagna valley, the southern end of the Alps where the Tenda tunnel drops toward the Côte d'Azur.

Ossana

Province: Trento · 1,003 m

3h 30m from Cortina d'Ampezzo by car

A small borgo at the foot of a 25-metre stone keep, with Christmas nativity scenes filling its streets every December.

Fenestrelle

Province: Torino · 1,154 m

A village below the largest alpine fortress in Europe, three kilometers of stone climbing the ridge above it.