Each year I love nothing more than to head out from Australia’s summer heat and fly to the northern hemisphere for my annual ski trip. This year’s trip is to Champoluc, part of the Monterosa ski area in Italy’s Aosta Valley.
Most of the guides I read prior to arriving suggested hiring a car to drive up or catching a bus from airports in either Milan or Turin. However, as our Airbnb host informed us, there is another way – public transport.
We stayed a few days in Turin, or as it’s locally called, Torino, so it was from there that we left, though this itinerary can also be done from Milan. Both cities have major airports and great train connections.
Step 1.
From either Milan or Turin you can catch a train to a small town called Chivasso. The trip is around half way between Milan and Turin and took us around half an hour. Tickets were purchased from a popular website called The Trainline and cost €3.90 each.
Today we learned that it’s probably easier to book your tickets on the train platform using one of the multilingual ticket machines. The trains won’t be full and it’s probably cheaper too.
Step 2.
At Chivasso you change trains and catch train with the destination – Aosta. There are probably many more connections if you follow the train all the way to its final destination but we got off the train at a station called Verres. The cost of this train was €5.90
Verres is a rather small town but in a stroke of luck, there is a bar/cafe attached to the train station, which might be a good place to kill some time if you have a bit of a wait for your onward connection.
Fortunately, many of the local busses pull up right outside the Verres train station. There was rudimentary timetable outside for busses heading up the mountain. Vita bus company is the bus you’re going to need and it serves a number of destinations in the Aosta Valley, as the map below details.
Step 3.
Our bus had “509 Ayas” in the front window and was one of those that picks you up at the station. They run every hour to hour and a half and cost €2.90 each. The journey up to Champoluc was spectacular and took around an hour, dropping us off right in the middle of town. The journey from Turin was scenic and fun.