Kronplatz with children – the mountain in the middle of the Pustertal

Kronplatz looks like a mountain a five-year-old would draw: a round dome rising in the middle of the Pustertal, with pistes in every direction and a flat summit at 2,275 metres. In Italian and Ladin it is called Plan de Corones. It is South Tyrol's biggest ski mountain and one of the most family-friendly in the whole of The Dolomites.

The shape is also the whole point. All the gondolas go up to the same summit. That is where the restaurants, the museums and the view are, and from there you can choose which side to ski down. For a family where someone skis black runs and someone is still snowploughing, it is hard to find anything simpler: you always meet at the top.

The ski area in numbers

Kronplatz has 125 kilometres of pistes and 32 lifts, between 935 and 2,275 metres above sea level. Of the pistes, 60 kilometres are blue, 36 kilometres red and 29 kilometres black. The black runs are known as the Black Five: Sylvester, Herrnegg, Pre da Peres, Erta and Piculin. They are among the steepest in South Tyrol and a good goal for teenagers.

The mountain is part of Dolomiti Superski, so the lift pass is also valid in Val Gardena, Cortina d'Ampezzo and the other areas. From Piculin you can get across to Alta Badia and Sella Ronda, but for families with small children there is more than enough skiing on Kronplatz.

A lot has been rebuilt ahead of the 2026/27 season. A new ten-seater gondola, Kronplatz 1+2, runs from Reischach to the top. The Ruis gondola from the Furkel Pass is new, and the Dolomiti chairlift has heated seats and weather hoods. Two new blue pistes, Dolomiti and Weiden, give beginners more quiet runs.

The villages – which one suits you?

Village	Suits	Why
Bruneck and Reischach	Families who want ski school and a town	The ski school with Croniworld, a new gondola straight to the top, pedestrian streets and shops in Bruneck
Olang	Beginners and small children	Gentle, sunny pistes and the Olang I and II gondolas to the top in eleven minutes
St. Vigil	Peace and quiet and a Ladin village feel	The least traffic, less village life and its own lifts on the south side of the mountain
Percha	Families travelling without a car	The Ried gondola goes straight from the railway station

Bruneck is a proper small town with old streets and a castle, not a ski village. The lifts leave from Reischach, a few kilometres up towards the mountain. If you stay in town, you take the ski bus. If you stay in Reischach, you walk to the gondola.

Olang is on the other side of the mountain. The ten-seater Olang I and II gondolas take you to the top in about eleven minutes, and the ski bus runs to the valley stations about every twenty minutes. The pistes here are gentle and sunny, and the village has its own children's area.

St. Vigil in Enneberg is a Ladin village on the south side, facing the Fanes-Sennes-Prags nature park. It is the quietest of the villages and a good choice for families who want peaceful evenings.

Children's areas and ski school

The best facilities for the youngest are in Reischach. Skischule Kronplatz takes children from age three, and the youngest start indoors at Croniworld. It is a children's world of around 450 square metres with a small indoor ski slope, a climbing wall, a trampoline, a slide, a play corner, a children's cinema and a restaurant. There the youngest practise in peace and warmth with specially trained children's instructors before heading out to the children's ski park. Croniworld also works as a lunch spot during the lesson week.

ROC Ski- & Snowboardschool, also in Reischach, has children's lessons for four- to twelve-year-olds. The courses last three days and can be booked one at a time. There are more schools in Olang and St. Vigil. Book early for the February school holiday weeks. We go through rest days and ski school during the week in ski trip with children – tips and advice.

Lift passes for children: in the 2026/27 season, children born 2019–2023 ski free if an adult buys a lift pass for the same period at the same time. Children born 2009–2018 have a junior pass that costs less than the adult pass, and for parents with children born 2024–2026 there is a pass the parents can share. Bring passports or ID cards for the children.

Helmet has been compulsory for everyone, adults and children alike, on Italian slopes since the 2025/26 season.

The train to the lifts

Kronplatz is one of the few ski resorts in the Alps where you can step off the train and straight into a gondola. The Ski Pustertal Express stops in Percha, and the valley station for the Ried gondola is by the station. The train runs every thirty minutes and continues east to Vierschach, where the Helm lift takes you up into the 3 Zinnen Dolomites ski area. The journey there takes about 35 minutes. It makes a fun day out with older children.

The train ticket is not included in the lift pass. With the Kronplatz Guest Pass, which many places to stay in the area give you, you travel by train and bus for free. Without it, you buy a normal ticket and validate it for each journey.

If you want to take the train all the way from Sweden, the Brenner line runs via Innsbruck to Franzensfeste, where you change to the Pustertal line towards Bruneck. If you want to take the train all the way to South Tyrol, you will find the changes and night trains in train to the Alps – how it works. If you fly, Innsbruck is closest, about an hour and a half to two hours away by car.

Museums at the top

Two museums sit at the top and are ideal for a day of bad weather or tired legs. The Messner Mountain Museum Corones was designed by Zaha Hadid and blasted into the mountain. It is about the history of mountaineering, and from a viewing balcony you look out over the Dolomites. Next door is Lumen, a museum of mountain photography with a hall of mirrors and exhibitions on how a camera captures light. Both can be reached by gondola, even if you don't ski.

Does Kronplatz suit your family?

Kronplatz suits families who want a big but easy-to-navigate mountain, a ski school with an unusually good start for the youngest and the option of travelling without a car. If you want more of a classic Dolomites feel with several linked valleys, compare with Val Gardena. There are more options in our overview of Italy's ski trips, and don't forget the ski trip packing list.