Good base for a european season

hi,

We are a family of five looking to spend winter in or near to the Alps (or Pyrenees), we'll also consider further afield in Eastern Europe. We spent 10 weeks in Austria last season and rented an apartment in St Johann im Pongau. We're definitely looking there again but it is hard to find places to rent in Austria anywhere near the mountains that aren't a long term rental (3 years) or just targeted at the chalet market.

In our favour, we don't plan to be on the slopes every day, in fact we need time to do school work and work and we like to do other things, hiking, snow shoeing, touring etc. We don't also need the top top resorts, just a good mix. We have a car too so it's fine if we need to drive a half hour to 40 minutes.

Anyway, what we're tyring to do isn't that common, just wondered if anyone else has done or tried something similar. We're looking at December to April, but partly depends which visa and country we get, otherwise it might be 90 days.

We're also interested to just chat with others trying to get some time closer to an alpine environment this winter too.

Innsbruck's well located (!) if you fancy Austria again, and you'll get the conveniences (and, probably, many accommodation options) of a good-sized city.

Bourg Saint Maurice is somewhat smaller but very well located for enough big French ski areas to keep you busy for a winter, with a direct funicular link into Les Arcs and only short road trips required to get you to La Plagne, Tignes, Val d'Isere and a whole bunch of others.

If you fancy Italy, then you could do worse than looking at Aosta; nice town with a direct gondola up to Pila and good road connections to all the resorts in the Aosta Valley (and through the tunnel to Chamonix for a longer day trip or two).

Do you have a preference for country or culture?