If you are not into winter sports, chances are that you’ve never heard of Oulx. This small town in the Susa Valley is the second stop in Italy for trains on the main line from Paris to Turin and Milan. Those who disembark here are invariably bound for the slopes. The local resort is Sauze d’Oulx, part of the wider Via Lattea (Milky Way) ski area which extends across the nearby border into neighbouring France.

The full name of the station is Oulx-Cesana-Claviere-Sestriere (which ambitiously exaggerates the importance of this small Piedmont community). Three TGV trains speed every day from Paris to Oulx in just under five hours, stopping at Lyon (either at Part-Dieu in the city centre or at St Exupéry for Lyon Airport) and/or Chambéry along the way. There are local trains, normally hourly, from Turin to Bardonecchia which stop at Oulx. The journey from Turin to Oulx using this local train service takes about 75 minutes.

A new local cross-border train service from Oulx to Modane in France (via the Fréjus Rail Tunnel) was launched in 2017. It runs every two hours, presently only on Saturdays and Sundays. On weekdays, the only option for journeys to Modane is the occasional TGV. Whether on the TGV or the local train, it is a half-hour journey from Oulx to Modane.

The journey by train from London to Oulx via Paris takes about nine hours. That allows ample time for the transfer between stations in Paris. Travellers from elsewhere in northern Europe heading to Oulx can opt for routings via Paris or travel south via either the Simplon or Gotthard routes to Milan and then head west to Turin and Oulx.