Ian Spare wrote:

Ace wrote:

On 21 Jan 2005 03:25:38 -0800, wrote:


I'm going to be in Lausanne for business for 10 days ending on a
Thursday evening. Obviously my boss wouldn't send me to Switzerland in
winter if he didn't intend that this should be followed by skiing, so
my other half will join me on Thursday night.

Where should we go, leaving Lausanne (earlyish) Friday morning,
returning from Geneva/Zurich/anywhere else Monday evening? We would
prefer to travel by train, but are prepared to drive.



The closest Swiss resorts would be the Gstaad/Diablerets area, but
these are not particuarly convenient to get to, and particularly not
to get around if you don't have a car.


Not the closest either :-) That's Leysin for anywhere of any size, next
stations in PdS (the Swiss side obviously). Loads and loads of stuff in
a car, Verbier, Crans etc etc.There's a couple of closer places but
they're pretty small.


Yes, for smaller resorts the nearest is Rochers de Naye (aka "Les
Pleiades"). Rochers is very small but I hear also quiet and underused -
and has easy access by train from Lausanne.

Villars is a bit larger, and also has links up to Diablerets.

There's a nice collection of links here (most of the links are in
French): http://www.leleman.com/english/paget...stationski.htm

In the Jura stations (St Cergue / La Dole and Lelex / Crozet) you ski
right up to the peaks - Crozet is great for views of the Alps but in my
experience there's either not enough snow, or the snow's great but high
winds close the lifts. Having said which, there are some wonderful
cross-country tracks, especially the Lac de Joux, if you fancy something
a bit different.

Verbier is probably easier to get to by rail (look at www.sbb.ch for
train times) and offers just about anything you could wish for; then
there's the French resorts of Portes du Soleil, Grand Massif (Flaine,
Samoens et al.) and Chamonix within about an hour and a half by car.


Be a strange choice from Lausanne though.

Especially for a day or two - it's more worth the journey for a week.

We ski reasonably competently on piste, mainly on reds & blacks, and
incompetently off piste.

Verbier looks obvious, but we've been there a few times and would like
to try somewhere new.