The ski area above Limone Piemonte in the Maritime Alps, one of the oldest resorts in Italy and the closest real skiing to the Ligurian coast, which is around an hour and a half away. The terrain is wide and mostly intermediate with a decent vertical and larch forest on the lower slopes, and the snow record is helped by moist air coming up from the Mediterranean. Limone is a proper Piedmontese village with stone houses, a Saturday market and a railway station on the line from Turin to Ventimiglia, which makes arriving by train a genuine option. Turin is around ninety minutes away and the food in the valley is worth staying for.