Turin: Dancing With Passion in Winter Beside the Alps

People usually tag Italy with "history", "civilization" and "summer sunshine", making this Mediterranean country seemingly less related to ice or snow. Nevertheless, Turin, Italy's 3rd largest city situated in the country's northeast part was once chosen as the host city of Winter Olympic Games. The local ski destinations and skating venues will welcome tourists from all over the world until spring's arrival. Here, you can spend your winter in an energetic manner.

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Situated in the western tip of the city, Bardonecchia is surrounded by Alps Mountains. Year after year, the heavy snow coats the town thickly in silver after winter's arrival. Bardonecchia possesses skiing areas that have been selected as the competition venues of 2006 Torino Winter Olympic Games. With a height of 2800 meters, the mountain named Jaffera has little obstacles like trees from its half way to the top, allowing skilled skiers to dash down from the top boundlessly. Campo Smith at Jaffera's foothill meanwhile is rather flat, with a broad track which the laymen can get used to.

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Tourists can also capture the sight of Alps in Vialettea, another magnificent area for skiing situated to the southeast of Bardonecchia. "Vialettea" means "Milky Way" in Italian. The name given to this place is not that exaggerating. During winters, sunlight makes this 400-kilometer-long skiing area look like a field scattered with sparkling diamonds, making tourists in it feel like standing in the middle of the Milky Way. The part on the mountain spotted with trees, with an altitude over 3000 meters, serves as a place of speed and excitement since skiers have to pay full attention to the track to pass the hindering trees while swooshing down the mountain in only a few minutes.

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Palavela Arena, one of Winter Olympic Games' competition venues found in Turin's urban area, is a wonderful choice for those who are interested in indoor skating. With a size of 29,400 square kilometers, during the winter games in 2006, this arena welcomed numerous athletes of the disciplines of short track speed skating and figure skating, and witnessed the beauty of speed and dance demonstrated by them. Now, after hiring a pair of ice skates that will cost a few euros, every visitor can try speed skating and, through this experience, dance with passion on the field where those athletes shed sweats before.