Ski weekends

Looking into the possibility of a weekend away, taking advantage of the current Ryanair offer of £10 each way no taxes, and it looks like the following airports are do-able from Stansted:

Basel
Grenoble-Lyon
Friedrichshafen
Milan
Salzburg

From experience, where would be best to aim for, where there are good and regular public transport links direct to ski areas with shortish travel times from the airports?

Looking at some time early of late feb, not during school holidays.

Thanks

Hi Tony

For a short break, the trick is to maximise the amount of ski time you can manage - you should be aiming to ski on arrival and/or departure day but definitely on one or the other. Evening flights can work well. e.g. leave work late Friday afternoon, get to resort late evening, ready to ski first thing Saturday morning. On Sunday or Monday, ski all or most of the day and then head straight to the airport - in your ski gear if you have to :shock: - for a late evening return flight. Early morning flights can also be useful and, with luck, get you to resort in time for a few hours skiing on arrival day - however, with the time change and risk of delays, etc, this can often go wrong.

So if I were you, I would look for very early or late flight times or better still early out and late back. Then check the "skiing near airports" page here and check out transport links to your preferred resort. I suspect Salzburg is about as close as you can get to the slopes - the Ski Amade area is very close by - might not suit you for a week but probably fine for a short break. Obviously, hiring a car gives you much more flexibility about where to go and should reduce overall travelling time.

Does this mean yet another trip this year? Lucky b*****d :twisted:

Thanks. Yes, the plan is to fly out either late on a Thursday evening and back on a Sunday night, or out on a Friday early morning, and get at leadt 2 full days skiing out of it, possibly 3, but limiting the amount of time I need off work as thats the key issue in terms of annual leave.

Hiring a car is a possibility, but it may only be me and Mrs H or me and a mate, so keeping costs to a minimum is also essential, hence the question re public transport, as I know trains and buses in Europe are supposed to be cheap. A car for a weekend is likely to be £100 or more.

And yes, short transfers are better to maximise skiing time. I have not donr a short break before, apart from a few days in BKK a few years back, but that was just an excuse to drink heavily and was before I fully appreciated my skiing.

Any suggestions for resorts with easy transfers from the airports mentioned would be gratefully received.

Wanderer - life is for living. There is too much bad stuff going on in the world and at home to to stop me taking time out to do the things I enjoy in life, in particular skiing. I am already missing it badly after a fantastic week in St Anton, and its another 2 months until I next go, so I was looking for something workable in between to break the monotony.

Thanks for your advice though.

If it twer me then it would be Salzburg and then Obertauern or Saalbach.

Not been to Obertauern but nearly have a couple of times as a short break.

skinitaly.com wrote:Hi Tony


Seeing you have not been to Sauze for some time especially hwen the snow was so good how about flying into turin, catch the train to oulx and you are here again

hope to see you soon

Its a possibility, but the flights in to Turin dont quite work as well as the other airports I mentioned.

Do you know where I can find info on the trains?

Alright, no need to shout )

Salzburg and then train on to Zell am See.

I've just arranged a 4 day short break doing just that.

Dave

Inverness--> Glenshee 2hours

Inverness--> Cairngorms 40mins

Inverness--> The Lecht 1 hour

Inverness--> Glencoe 2 hours

Inverness--> Nevis Range 1 hour 30 mins