[Closed] Skier-ist's - where for long week-end?

Short transfer
Short transfer
Short transfer

That is all!

Oh, and Serre Che. Obviously.

We've done Italy a few times. Milan Bergamo or Malpensa (one is Ryan air, the other easy jet, neither particularly near Milan) then into the mountains. Smaller resorts but generally nice and cheap. Innsbruck is another option. Cheap flights and limited skiing right there or bigger resorts an hour or 2 away. Or Pyrenees from Barcelona or Toulouse. Lots of flight options but you'll probably need a hire car.

so where to fly for serre chevalier?

and what resorts are near innsbruck?

thx

Turin.

Also opens up the Via Lattea or Montgenevre.

and what resorts are near innsbruck?

You haven't said where you are based. Which kind of suggests London, as Londoners would never dream that anyone else might live elsewhere...

But anyway, wherever has late evening flights really. It slightly depends on your money/time ratio, but from Manchster St Anton va Zurich as always been best for me.

Thursday evening flight MAN- ZRH. Hire car to St Anton. 3 days skiingin St Anton, then fourth day in Zurs then drive back to Zurich Overnight at the airport and then early flight back on Tuesday in time for work. Wheeler ratio of 2.0, which is good as it gets for a four day weekend.

We go to Morzine 4.5 days skiing and 4 nights away.

Short transfer (1-2 hrs ideally), reliable snow.

I've done many weekends (3 days better than 2 🙂 ) in Chamonix, St Anton, Meribel and Verbier.

It helps a lot if transfers are taken care of, taxi/mini bus or you drive having a rental car which is ready to go (frequent traveller club so no paperwork). We used to use a company in St Anton which picked us up in a min-bus with beers and gave us the option of going straight to bar/club ! As above we flew to Zurich for St Anton. Verbier and Chamonix where my favourites, both easy to weekend and with a 7 or 8pm flight on Sunday you can ski a pretty decent day on Sunday. We used to go to airport in our ski gear on Sunday straight drom slopes and change at/after check-in. By change that generally mean jeans for ski trousers 🙂

Cormayeur, isn't a bad place for a weekend, if you are flying to Geneva.
Factor in the Tunnel Toll tough.
Lots of nice hotels, nice town. Possible Valley Bianco, if that floats your boat.

When we went for a short break, the apres bars in town started bringing out loads of food, to encourage people to stick around for more apres beer..It worked we stayed for more beer and food and didn't need an evening meal!

The Mrs is going to Seefeldt for a long weekend skiing, she is doing cross country but says there's plenty of normal skiing there. Cancel that she now says it's mainly xc, mind you the web pages says otherwise, very close to Innsbruck though

kent - fly from Gatwick

guess i was a bit saarrfff-centric, but kind of assumed best connections generally from London

Courmayeur is lush! How long is the transfer?

had the mother of all lunches in Courmayeur once - pasta just kept on coming......

It's just the other side of the Mt Blanc tunnel. Adds 30-45 min or so, depending on the traffic for the tunnel, over going to Chamonix.
As said above, the mountain food is a step up on anything I've ever had in a French mountain restaurant.
As its a less busy place, they seemed considerably more welcoming too.
Having said that, I'm off to Chamonix on the 8th!

As above, also done Nendaz for a quickie, a good option, despite the speeding ticket on the Swiss Motorway, too Bl@@dy efficient, those Swiss..
Morillon, quick transfer, OK ski area, not great town, very sleepy. Cheap accommodation though.

Chamonix
Moraine
Davos ( 2hrs from Zurich)
Films Laax - 2hr from Zurich
Arosa
Engelburg

Short transfer and proper airport.
Solden's amusing.

Fly to Munich (loads of flights including very early and late) then pick up a hire car which is a decent operation there and hit Austria (skiwelt) in 1.5 hours of easy motorway driving. If you want to go higher and you probably do if it's for this season then it's more like 2.5 hours.

At the moment I'd probably just go to Samoens / Flaine.

Alpe D'Huez or Les Deux Alpe should work, both 90 mins from Grenoble.

Book accommodation independently and arrange a late return flight with a short-ish transfer. You can then get an extra days skiing in if you can find somewhere to store luggage and get a shower. Finish the day on the slopes at 4pm-ish, transfer by 6 or 7, late flight back.

Used to do these kinds of trips for a number of years. Out on a Thur evening, ski Fri, Sat, Sun & Mon and return Mon evening.

We did places like Alpe D'Huez, Avoriaz, Chamonix but most years did Saalbach, which is a fun and happy place.

p.s. if you're looking at this year, look for somewhere high. Snow conditions have been terrible this year, though just recently been getting decent dumps of snow, but still the depths are way lower than they should be and many places have closed pistes or lifts, especially Italy.

So long as you accept a long weekend costs about as much as a week... We booked flights then picked up accommodation a week before based on snow. 3hrs from gva gets you as fast as deux alpes etc.

I have done the following for weekends

From Geneva:
Chamonix
Verbier
Crans Montana (more than ideal but had free accomodation)

But also consider Portes de Soleil, Flaine, Megeve (a friend commuted to Geneva from there)

From Zurich:
Tacked a trip to Klosters onto a business trip but probably too far.

From Turin

Aosta valley (gressoney)
Courmayer (some people do it from Milan)

I have done Bormio from Milan but that I was in Milan anyway.

But you can also go west to Sestriere (the alpine venue for the Winter Olympics) and if you wish onto the Briancon resorts, or North to Cervinia which my wife has done.

Austria is tricky as you really need a direct flight to Innsbruck, but if you can find that loads of resorts are possible, I have done:

Saalbach
Solden

Salzburg.
We've landed at 10am and been skiing by 12pm (after going through passport control, waiting for bags, collecting hire car driving to resort, sticking kit on and buying a lift pass). Some great ski areas acessible within minutes of a motorway (Flachau, Zauchensee, Schladming). A lot more resorts are accessible with a slightly longer transfer - Skiwelt, Kitzbuhel, Saalbach, Maria Alm, Zell am See...

The only difficulty can be fewer flight times compared to say Geneva. But there are options from Gatwick with BA, Easyjet and Norwegian Air.

Austria is tricky as you really need a direct flight to Innsbruck, but if you can find that loads of resorts are possible, I have done:

Saalbach
Solden

I think I probably went to Saalbach via Salzburg, recollection is a bit hazy.

Really looks like something near Geneva is the best looking at flight availability

OP so Chamonix 1hr, Morzine (but ski high in Avoriaz) 1hr, Verbier 2 - depending upon snow conditions you can get to La Clusaz in about an hour too, great little resort and fab cheapish restaurants. We'll be in Verbier for 10 days from 10th probably if you do come and want a beer/lunch/dinner companions.

From above Arosa, Klosters, Davos you can do from Zurich via train which can make a lot of sense, arrving in Arosa from Chur via the 1hr mountain railway trip is very cool - best suited to 3-4 days though. Resort more about touring than miles of pistes but new Lenzerheide link now open I think.

Have done Cham from Edinburgh a few times, going in a couple of weeks again - fri flight at 6:30am, ski all afternoon, Sat, Sun, Mon morning, flight mid afternoon, home for tea and tuck kids in. Perfect.

Salzburg was always my route to Saalbach. Not too bad on transfer time. Think cheap flights tended to be Ryanair which meant Stansted which is a pain when you live the opposite side of London.

Saalbach area is becoming huge. Saalbach is linked to Hinterglemm, Leogang and Fieberbrunn, and due to be linked up with Zel am See and Kaprun.

Geneva has a lot of flight options, including BA which means I can use airmiles, or cheap and nasty with Sleazyjet.

Left-field:
Nevis Range & Glencoe from Ft Bill..? Snow conditions in Scotland are very good this year, especially in the west; superb off-piste this season too with huge depths in the back bowls.
Overnight train from London drops you in town centre, bags to hotel, 10 minute taxi to Nevis Range. Will be at its best March into April this year.
http://www.winterhighland.info/pix/pixalbum.php?pix_id=1145
http://www.winterhighland.info/pix/pixalbum.php?pix_id=1144
Just a thought...

Telegraph Travel named La Clusaz as the best weekend ski destination. We go on the 11/3 coming back 14/3. 6.20am flight to Geneva, hire cars to drive less than an hour to slopes, so should be on the slopes by midday if all goes well. Late evening flight on Monday means a full day on the slopes. If hiring a car select car and flight on BA web site for the best deal.

Have also flown early to Munich a few times and driven to The Ski welt. In the lift by 12.45 inc ski hire.

OP just another note on Verbier, it can be difficult to find accomodation as there are very few hotels. Most ski accomodation is Chalet or Apartment rental by the week

I used to do laax for a long weekend. Flight to Zurich , of which there are shitloads,1 hr on the motorway

I am doing the skiweekends coach thing this year, after an abortive attempt a couple of years ago where I had to sell it on to a member on here.

Going to Brides les Bain so not ideal but they have a shuttle bus to a gondola that takes you up to Courcheval. Years ago they went to la Tania as well which was ski to the door, and nice runs to do that.

Coach from Victoria 5pm on Thursday night, straight through the tunnel rather than a ferry (which is hassle), big seats with good recline, beers on coach I seem to remember, sleep on coach, ski from about 9.30am on Friday, ski Saturday, catch coach after ski on Sunday, back in London for about 10am Monday.

If you can sleep on the coach, where the seats recline a lot, then you are golden.

Did it some years ago and it is fine and the fact you throw your skis in the coach luggage space then get on and combining drinking with munching and reading/watching movies and snoozing and not having to flap around with transfers and keeping awake whilst driving appeals to me.

£349 plus £125 lift pass.

There is a coach company that does a single day like this -

http://www.skicoachinnovations.com/?gclid=CMmzzZan9coCFdW4GwodzqUNqA

cheaper as no accomodation involved and lift pass included in the price!

£30 cheaper for repeaters might indicate that it is an ordeal, or it might just be encouraging a loyal base of users.

Bookmarked - any more Manchester ones (not Chill Factore) most welcome

We did St.Gervais / Megeve as our lads* weekend this year. Quick transfer from Geneva.

Much preferred it to Chamonix.

* everybody is quite old now so was quite sedate.