Destination suggestions? Ski and city
 

My dh and I are looking for someplace in Europe to go for the 1st week of March. We want some good skiing for a few days, and also to spend a few days in one of Europe's great cities. Any suggestions on two places that are located close enough that a switch between them mid-week won't be a huge deal (a few hours or so, maybe by train, or something like that). Suggestions? We're pretty open. Thank you!

Hi lukesaunt,

Almost any ski destination in Switzerland will fit your requirements, as almost anywhere is within 2-3 hours of a major Swiss city. Here are some suggestions:

Wengen or Mürren paired with Luzern or Zürich

Pontresian, Sils, or Silvaplana paired with Zürich

Zermatt (may have no hotel rooms however) or Saas Fee paired with Geneva or Zürich.

Have fun!

s

Sorry, typo. Second string should be:

Pontresina (not Pontresian), Sils, or Silvaplana . . .

s

Lech/Zurs/St. Anton/San Cristophe Austria with the quick train trip to Innsbruck. A smaller city, but a great old city area.

Zell am See/Kaprun coupled with Salzburg.

Consider what we did for New Years last month. We stayed the week in Salzburg. I don't ski but my husband does and three of the days he took the snow shuttle. http://www2.salzburg.info/offers_3545.htm

Each day of the week it picks up in a central location in Salzburg (we walked from our hotel) at 8:30 am, goes to a ski resort, the staff on board help you buy lift tickets and rental equipment and work out the other logistics of the resort, then by 5:30 pm or so it returns to the same location. Very easy and round trip each day is 13 Euro (lift tickets, equipment rental etc are in addition to that).

And Salzburg was great fun, even in January, a number of contemporary coffee shops and wine bars and restaurants, great city atmosphere, a great new history museum, churches, monestaries, the Mozart sites, and other good day trips in the area by train, bus or rental car. You could split your week with an Austrian ski resort or stay the whole week in the city.

We had looked at a number of places including in Switzerland and Italy and Salzburg seemed unique with this snow shuttle.

Dolomites ... and Venice?

Steve

Salzburg sounds like a good idea. Btw, I will go to Salzburg in a few weeks and look forward to it.

No such ski shuttles in Swiss cities because the Public transportation system there is better than in Austria and you can jump on a train or bus every 30 minutes or so to go to a ski area.

Luzern comes to my mind - you can even stay in the city and take a ferry to the skiing area of Klewenalp/Stockhütte. Or take the train to Engelberg. Or the train/bus combo to Melchsee-Frutt. All that max. an hour away.

Bern of course has the Jungfrau ski region nearby - doable as a day trip.

Ingo

Lukesaunt,

My very first trip to Europe was a ski club trip to Cortina in the Dolomiti. Fabulous! We skied for a week and ended in Venice. Wonderful, moody, nearly deserted in March. A great intoduction to Venice! It was about a 2.5 hour drive from Venice to Cortina.

Buon viaggio!