kit

Hi folks,

My girlfriend and I are going to take the week of Thanksgiving to have a little vacation this year -- we'll have seven days total. We fly in and out of Amsterdam, but thought we'd take a quick flight to another city while we were there, too. We'd orinally been thinking one of the big cities, but now I'm wondering if a quick, two-day ski fix might be do-able. How is the snow during the late-November timeframe? Or, I should ask -- who has the best snow that would be easy to get to from Amsterdam.

I have buzzed around splenty of websites, but they all look the best, don't they?

We're both good (easy-going) experienced travelers, so we're not afraid of planes, trains and automobiles...

Thanks in advance for any assistance!

Clark55

I would skip this idea, the snow situation is too risky & anyway most resorts open only in December.

Dukey

Topping

grandmere

Some glaciers might "guarantee" snow, such as the Stubai, near Innsbruck. However, Clark55 brings up the very valid point of resort openings so early.

nytraveler

Thanksgiving is too early for snow in most places. The only ones open will be high-altitude glacirt skiing that's open all year. And unless you're used to those altitudes it may take more than a day or two to acclimitize.

julia_t

As the previous poster says, only the very high altitude resorts with glacier skiing will be open in November. You can ski year-round in Les Deux Alpes in France for example, but it will be pretty quiet and take you the best part of an hour just to get high enough up the mountain.

Even in January snow isn't always guaranteed in some resorts in Europe.

Skiing is great fun, but with only 7 days you'd be better spending some time in another city, maybe London or Paris.

logos999

Althought the Stubaier glacier is great for Summer skiing, it's rather "flat" terrain, so you might be disappointed. Adopting to the hight is another thing if you usually live at sea level...

Tulips

Adding to the above, the high altitude resorts where you will have snow in November are never the ones that are easily reached from Amsterdam; you'll spend the best part of two days traveling to the ski resort and back to Amsterdam.

What is nice in November, if you want to stay in The Netherlands, is go to the Veluwe for two days, see the national park (go cycling, see the Van Gogh paintings at the Kroller Moller museum). Stay in one of the nice Bilderberg hotels; we stayed in Klein Zwitserland, where they have an excellent restaurant, and eat the game that is in season then. If you wanted a taste of rural Holland I can recommend this.

Dukey

If you DO decide to fly somewhere within Europe take a look at www.skyscanner.net

You can easily get to points in Switzerland such as Geneva within hours.

However, the "problem" may be the restrictions on checked luggage.

kit

Thanks, all. It does appear tht this might be a bad plan, afterall. I've been skiing in the Austrian Alps, but in January. It simply did not occur to me that resorts in Europe opened late. Many, many thanks!

kr

http://is0.info/portal/content/2001/

ischgl opens thanksgiving

kleeblatt

I used to go skiing in Sölden, Austria, every year, right around Nov. 1. We were skiing on the glacier. We loved it. It offers runs on both sides of the glacier.

FlyFish

Ischgl opened on Thanksgiving last year as well - they had 20 cm of snow on the upper slopes and none on the lower slopes, according to records maintained by the Ski Club of Great Britain. That's not my idea of a ski vacation. You could luck out, I suppose, but Thanksgiving is really too early for sking the Alps, except for the glaciers as others have mentioned.

geeper

ttt