Ski slopes near Rome

I was excited when we decided that this weekend, we will try cross country skiing at a place that’s about 90 minutes from Rome.  I wasn’t sure if there was snow for us to even do that as it’s been warmer than usual this week.  After checking snow reports online, my husband said yes there’s about 20-40cm of snow.

View Larger Map

This morning, we left Rome at 8am and headed towards Campo Felice which is in Abruzzo.   As we got closer, it was an unusual site as only the peaks were covered with snow!  The temperature was between 3-5C but no signs of the 20-40cm of snow. We checked at the ticket counter and they said the tracks for cross country skiing is closed.  By looking around, you really couldn’t be surprised by this news.

What’s surprising though is that for that early in the morning, there was already quite a crowd.  They must definitely love skiing to come out even when there’s not much snow!  There was a slope but due to the warm weather, it’s artificial.  Imagine if there was a thick layer of snow, this place will be covered for sure!

One of the attendants at Campo Felice advised us to try another place that was near by but he said due to the scirocco winds (warm) from Africa, there’s not much snow.

As we knew it was unlikely that we will be able to cross-country ski today, we went a grab something hot to drink.

My sister and I decided to indulge and got hot chocolate Italian style.  The hot chocolates here are super thick and more like pudding.  That was our treat instead!  Anyway, since Campo Felice is not too far from Rome, we will definitely try again.