My girlfriend's birthday is in mid-December. We are both living in Europe right now so we've done the obvious places already Paris, London, Venice, Amsterdam, Prague, Munich, etc. but I'd like to take her somewhere new for her birthday. We're both skiers so that's a possibility, but I haven't been here for a ski season so I don't know if the resorts will be open by then. If not, I'd like to take her to a nice, romantic, less well known city that would be good to visit in December. Any suggestions?

Gotthebug - Mid-December is a great time to visit Val Gardena if you want to ski in idyllic Dolomite scenery. The ski-lifts open on 3 Dec.

Have a look:

http://www.valgardena.it/eng/page182.html

http://www.valgardena.it/eng/page120.html

Hard to beat, trust me

Ortisei is a delightful Tyrolean village - a great place to stay.

Many of the hotels and B&B's give a 30% discount in early/mid December, so it can be great value for money too ...

http://www.valgardena.it

Hope this helps ...

Steve

Hi g,

You might wish to consider Barcelona.

Thanks Steve and Ira.

Val Gardena looks beautiful. As far as them opening for ski season on Dec. 3rd, that looks a little questionable since the webcam shows nice dirt covered mountains right now. I will definitely be keeping my eye on the snow situation because this looks perfect!

I've never been to Barcelona, but I'm almost sure my girlfriend has. I'll have to see if I can find a sneaky way of asking in the next couple of weeks. In the meanwhile I'll check it out.

Thanks again!

gotthebug

You don't need to worry about whether the pistes will be open.

All the pistes have snow canons - so skiing is guaranteed anyway from the 3 Dec. when the season opens (- they have a world championship race in the Val Gardena the week before Xmas).

Steve

P.S. As well as hotel special offers, there's a discount on the ski pass too (- 4 days for the price of 3).

How many days are you planning on taking for the trip?

Whare are you coming from in Europe, are you OK with a flight, or would you prefer to drive or take a train? Is there a limit on flight time or drive/train time?

Steve,

Excellent, thanks! Any chance if you know if the pistes will be open at all during the World Champs? That just happens to be 2 of the 4 days we'd be there. On the bright side, I guess they really do have to have snow! Hope I can find a room for that weekend...

Cicerone,

The trip will be from Dec. 16th - 20th. I'm living in the UK and she's living in Munich. We'd probably start the trip from Munich and I'm not opposed to any particular form of transport, but I obviously don't want to spend too much time traveling since we've only got a few days.

Thanks again for any help and input.

gotthebug

Hintertux is a great place.It is open the first of November, lots of snow. It is the largest glacier in Europe located in Austria. Not too far from Munich.

Some non-skiing places to consider:

Salzburg – very easy drive or train ride from Munich, would very beautiful and Christmassy, besides exploring the charming town, you could go to Christmas concerts (it’s a really musical city), drink gluwine, and you could get up into the mountains from here. There should be skiing nearby as well which you could do for a day, you might post a question. In town a great hotel is the Sacher, and there are a romantic-sounding inn and spa outside town I would like to check out myself, take a look at Vitalhotel Kobenzl at http://www.slh.com/austria/salzburg/hotel_nzlaus.html--.

Lisbon – often overlooked in favour of Barcelona, this is great for a few days and one of my favourite cities in Europe. I think pre-Christmas it would be a very special place to be. Would not be warm, but not cold either, although rain is probably more likely than not. Take a look at weatherbase.com. You could fly from London and she could fly from Munich. You can explore the city, take a day trip to Sintra, a beautifully preserved medieval city, and even get out to the coast if the weather cooperates for the day. I would stay either in town at the wonderful Four Seasons Ritz (great spa) or outside town at the Penha Longa (run by Ritz-Carlton, they have a golf course if that interests you, they also have a spa).

Barcelona – also great for a few days, you could both fly and meet here as well. Many good hotels to choose from. Lots of great restaurants, the Drolma in the Majestic Hotel would be a very nice birthday splurge restaurant. Again, not hot weather but should be good for touring, i.e. not freezing.

As for skiing, I would think you would find good snow by that point in December esp in higher elevations. I know really nothing about skiing in Germany, but you could consider:

St Anton, Austria
Klosters/Davos, Switzerland
St Mortiz/Pontresina/Celerina, Switzerland
Arosa, Switzerland

All the above would be driveable or a few hours train ride from Munich. In Klosters, my favourite charming little hotel is the Chesa Grischuna, take a look at http://www.chesagrischuna.ch/index-english.html. Klosters is not really a romantic Swiss town, but the hotel is very nice and has a great restaurant. I would only go to Klosters or Arosa if you are interested in skiing. If you want a little more charm, elegance, beautiful countryside and some skiing, go to St Moritz. For a nice little town and good skiing go to Arosa or St Anton (not much else to do in either place though). I can recco some hotels in St Moritz.

GTB - I think they close the Saslong for practice sessions for a few hours on the day preceding race day - but otherwise all the other slopes are open.

You shouldn't have too much trouble finding a room - especially if you arrive a day or two before race day. I've been there that week for the past 3 years and never had a problem.

Hope this helps ...

Steve