Sestriere - Milky Way - Italy

Sestriere of the Province of Turin. It is 17 km (11 miles) from the French border. Its name derives from Latin: ad petram sistrariam, that is at sixty Roman miles from Turin. Location of Sestriere in the province of Turin. Mount Rotta in Sestriere Sestriere is a popular skiing resort; during the winter holidays the population goes up to about 20,000 people. Together with the villages of Pragelato, Claviere, Sauze d'Oulx, Cesana Torinese and San Sicario, and Montgenèvre in France, it makes up the Via Lattea (Milky Way) skiing area. Sestriere is connected to 146 skiable pistes, for a total of up to 400 km of trails, of which 120 are provided with artificial snow. Sestriere is also one of the few facilities where it is possible to ski at night on a floodlit run. It regularly hosts Alpine Ski World Cup events, and it hosted the World Championships in 1997; it was a main venue during the 2006 Winter Olympic Games and the 2006 Winter Paralympics, hosting all the men's alpine skiing competitions and being the site of one of the three Olympic Villages. In the summertime it is possible to play golf on Europe's highest 18-hole course. It is also a famous starting and arrival point in the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia. Notably, it was the scene of a definitive moment in Lance Armstrong's career when he rode away from the field in a breakaway uphill finish to take the stage in the 1999 Tour de France, which was the first of his seven championships in that race. The two hotel towers, one of which was part of the Olympic Village, were built in the 1930s by FIAT's founder Giovanni Agnelli, and have become the symbol of the village; these were the first buildings of the village. ( source Wikipedia )