The giant Italian Dolomiti Superski area began to open at the weekend.

Conditions are looking good thanks to the heavy snowfall at the beginning of November which had already led to some of Italy’s other major resorts including Bormio and Livigno opening early.

Italy’s Dolomite mountains and the Wadden Sea along the coasts of Germany and the Netherlands were among several sites added yesterday to Unesco’s world heritage list. The UN agency’s World Heritage Committee announced the additions at a meeting in Seville, Spain.

The Wadden Sea coastline is a wetlands area rich in wildlife. Unesco described it as one of the world’s last, large-scale intertidal ecosystems. It also praised the Dolomites, in Italy’s northern Alps, as ”one of the most beautiful mountain landscapes anywhere.”

A British woman has fallen 300ft to her death down an Italian mountainside in front of her husband and friends. Patricia Fletcher, 64, was killed instantly after she tripped along a path. Earlier reports had said she fell about 656ft. The tragedy happened on Sunday in front of her husband George and a group of friends while on the last day of their holiday.