 Poster: A snowHead
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Quite fancy a long weekender next winter somewhere different. Have done the usual suspects in France & CH a few times so interested particularly in Austria or Italy if there is something that's feasible. The criteria:
Days skiing must equate to nights away so skiing on last day is a must until 1 or 2pm.
Departures from major London airports after 4pm on a weekday
Don't mind hiring a car
Accomodation bookable on a 3 or 4 night basis (don't mind staying down valley for this).
Innsbruck?
Turin?
Norway as an outside bet?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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fatbob, try Salzburg and the Sportwelt Amadé region which is 45minutes south of the airport in a car. Base yourself in Altenmarkt-Radstadt and make your last day's skiing from Flachau-Winkl (right by the A10 motorway back to Salzburg).
Contact Flangesax for accommodation or ask one of us for recommendations for hotels in the area if that is more your bag. I either use flangesax (32 - 35 Euro per night half board - but there is a snowHead discount as well) or a hotel in Altenmarkrt at 51 Euro per night half board.
There are loads of snowHeads in the area who can either recommend areas for you to explore or even lead you around if you want.
Out of the main areas, no problem getting part weeks at all and with a car you are better off staying down in the valley to make the most of getting from place to place.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Salzburg. Ryanair used to do early morning flight from Stansted, landing before 10am, quick transfer and you can still make it before 12 on the slopes. (We did it 3x - Obertauern, Flachau, Schladming).
They also had very late flights back, after 9pm, so we did full skiing on last days. Not sure about timetables now.
Above resorts are all around 1h transfer, bookable on resort websites for less than 50E return, and very efficient and quick.
Fairly easy to find short term accommodations in the low season.
Last edited by Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see? on Mon 11-07-11 15:42; edited 1 time in total
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Innsbruck - soooo many places to play around here, including some excellent offpiste and steep couloirs with ift access straight from the city centre.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Nice or Turin for Southern Alps? Limone de Piedmont seems to get hit by random big dumps from time to time or places like Vars/Isola might be worth a look in a good snow year
Rome for the Central Appenines?
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Hmm - now I remember why this looked difficulty. Sleasy only do Sats & Suns into Salzburg. Sleasy into Innsbruck not a particulaly late flight either way - best bet looks like a 7am out, 16.00 return which means 2 short days.
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fatbob, Maybe look at flying into Munich. Lufthansa (free ski carriage  ), British Airways, Easyjet all fly there from London.
I know people who have flown into Munich on Thursday evening at about 2030, skied Friday, Saturday and Sunday, then flown back on Sunday evening departing about 2100.
If you're hiring a car then there are plenty of options of where to go from Munich...
It takes about 1hour 45mins to drive to Zillertal if you worry about the speed limits.
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We did Gatwick to Grenoble and back over a long weekend, left on the Friday morning very early, we were on the slopes by noon. We drank our way through 3 days of madness, and could have skied on the last day, but in the end decided to have a lie-in, leisurely lunch, and then leave resort around 1pm.
We went to Alpe D'Huez, but there's several other resorts that are similar distance from Grenoble.
The real challenge was finding accomodation - luckily we caught a late season deal, but otherwise it wouldn't be easy to book a significant time in advance - might be better to organise last minute, when chalets and hotels accept shorter bookings to at least get some income when they clearly aren't going to be full.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Chosen a hotel in Innsbruck a few times that's geared up for late arrival (was closer to 2am once!), then hopped in car to Zillertal (call it 45mins from hotel to lift station). Huge free multistorey carpark by the lifts, so no need to worry about cleaning a foot of snow off for the return journey. St Anton is also an option.
Flying to Innsbruck tends to be verging on extortion. Flying to Munich has many more options, but is a gamble for the return journey. Never been to Salzburg, so can't comment there.
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| Monium wrote: |
We did Gatwick to Grenoble and back over a long weekend, left on the Friday morning very early, we were on the slopes by noon. We drank our way through 3 days of madness, and could have skied on the last day, but in the end decided to have a lie-in, leisurely lunch, and then leave resort around 1pm.
We went to Alpe D'Huez, but there's several other resorts that are similar distance from Grenoble.
The real challenge was finding accomodation - luckily we caught a late season deal, but otherwise it wouldn't be easy to book a significant time in advance - might be better to organise last minute, when chalets and hotels accept shorter bookings to at least get some income when they clearly aren't going to be full. |
from GNB or LYS you could stay in Grenoble itself and enjoy its nightlife then make daytrips up to Les 7 Laux and Chamrousse. Haven't been to the latter but 7 Laux is great and the lift tickets are very reasonable
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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We did a short break to St Anton via Innsbruck from Gatwick stayed with Super Travel in Chalet Rosanna - top notch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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fatbob, queasy and try'n'scare run to Milan IIRC. Also someone runs to Treviso which is pretty cool for Cortina (or Madonna)
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fatbob, I've done Milan (Bergamo) to ski at Cervinia (2.5 hour drive, so Turin would be nearer). There was no problems getting accommodation thanks to their last minute availability list at the Tourist Office, I went in the peak period between Christmas and New Year and even then it was fine.
I've mainly done Salzburg where there are resort choices in abundance and because Ryanair had good flight times there.
I've generally found Ryanair better timetabled for weekend jaunts, but haven't done one for a couple of seasons now.
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You know it makes sense.
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Flights seem a bit more restricted these days, the vast majority only seem to operate at weekends, so may as well do the full week/TO route. I found midweek flights to Munich, but not to Salzburg or Innsbruck.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Poster: A snowHead
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According to skyscanner the only direct scheduled flights to Salzburg from the UK are:
Easyjet from Bristol, Gatwick or Liverpool
Jet2 from Manchester or Leeds (I know these to be weekends only)
Flybe from Southampton or Exeter
Doesn't look like Ryanair do it any more?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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queen bodecia, BA and Air Berlin do too (from London, just checked SkyScanner) - did you check for the right time of year?
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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clarky999, BA did last winter but not sure whether it was a daily flight
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Swiss into Zurich, loads of flights and cheap as luggage and skis are in the price, then train to St anton, easy peasy. We've also used zurich for engleberg weekend and last year i used it for a few days on the cresta. A friend of ours did Lenzerheide last year and loved it, though he reckons a long weekend was sufficient.
or
Munich for Kitzbuhel, best to leave it relatively last minute as snow can be tricky. But why not go to the downhill for the ultimate long weekend. We went last year and it was awesome. Not one for teetotallers though..
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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hi
can highly recommend italy. We've done this about 5 times now to different resorts with no problems getting accommodation. Most recently flying stanstead to turin, then 1hr 30mins to pila (aosta valley), also done quite a few good trips flying stanstead to milan bergamo then 2hrs upto madesimo, both resorts no problem getting weekend accomodation because they get more weekend visitors then midweek, both resorts we have skied until after lunchtime on the last day, and often been able to 'keep a room' back for changing etc when we get off the slopes! 
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fatbob I think I'm right in saying that Turin to Sauze D'Oulx can be done in under an hour? As mentioned above, Aosta Valley resorts like Pila/Courmayeur etc are about 90 mins from Turin. Aosta town - which is nearer to Turin - is a good bet for cheap and plentiful accomodation - lovely cobbled streets in the old centre, Roman ruins (amphitheatre, 'Arc de Triomphe') etc - and connected by gondola to Pila. Cheaper than up the mountain for eating and drinking too.
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| fatbob wrote: |
| Hmm - now I remember why this looked difficulty. Sleasy only do Sats & Suns into Salzburg. Sleasy into Innsbruck not a particulaly late flight either way - best bet looks like a 7am out, 16.00 return which means 2 short days. |
It's why I always end up doing H'row - Munich. There's a 17:25 out, gets you in at 20:20 - that'll put you in resort somewhere like Kitzbuhel latest 23:00 and in the bar at 23:03.
There's a 21:10 out of Munich back to H'row, getting you in around 22:10 local time. If I feel like risking it I ski til about 4pm and leg it to the airport. Depending on the day and the weather, the traffic can be tricky, other times easy but, so far, in decades of doing it I've not missed a flight. Sometimes hire car but mainly use transfer taxi (best way in my opinion) and they never seem to recommend leaving earlier than 4. Other way is train of course.
This way you'll get full days and, right now, the BA flight is selling for £118.
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We went to Cortina in the Dolomites a few years ago - well under 2 hours from Venice and good early/late flights from LGW (BA and easy jet) .Booking a hotel for 3 nights wasn't a problem.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Ryanair do fly to Salzburg...
Winter schedules are released quite late so new flights may be added in the Autumn.
fatbob, If you fancy a schedule then PM me and I'll offer you a suggestion with transfers and shuttles all included... do it in an off-peak period and then I can have a play too
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Transfer to Courmayeur from Geneva is only just over an hour.
It can be tricky to split weeks (Thursday - Monday) but otherwise we often rent an apartment for the whole week and arrive or come back early. This often works out cheaper than finding a hotel for the right number of days.
Flexible flights are what really dictate your choice rather than accommodation. Geneva, Munich and Turin with scheduled flights is the way to go. We tend to use BA and pack a ski bag up to 23kg with two pairs of skis and clothes with the other bag containing two pairs of boots and clothes.
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FAQ
