As I get round to writing them. These are my personal impressions of the resorts. Since many places may have changed since my visits I have included dates of the reports.
Scootland before brakes ( mid 70s )
Kirchberg 93
Val D'Isere 95,96
Monte Campione 97
High altitude French resort above Tignes. When I first visited in the 80s it was a concrete wasteland and I vowed never to go back. More recently I ended up doing so and, with some more sensitive development, it's now reasonable.
Fantastic skiing
Town not as ugly as it used to be.
Can ski down to some places with character.
That's still very ugly
At 2100m suffered from altitude problems.
You could probably have spent the same money and gone to Val D'Isere.
Wonderful picturesque little Austrian village. This resort has a very English feel to it having for years been used for the ski training of english army officers. The resort is quiet ( having only one night spot ) and would be ideal for families. Unfortunately the skiing suffers from all the usual problems of low altitude resorts. After 3 years I felt that I have out-grown the resort and moved on.
Pretty village
Quiet
Civilized
Apres Ski ice creams at the 'Boglerhof Hotel'
Limited number of runs
Bus transfer to lifts
Unreliable snow conditions
A group of several custom built high altitude villages.
Door to door skiing
Lots of it
Some of the outer setlements have more character than the centre.
Custom built, High altitude resort
Three, smokey, uninteresting bars in town centre ... thats all folks.
Welcome to senic Plagne Centre
Les Arc is a group of three custom built, high altitude resorts at 1600, 1850 and 2000m. We were at the lowest which has the advantage of a funicular down to 'Borg St Maurice' which is a real french market town. This would give you the best of all worlds apart from the fact that the last train down is a 18:00 so you either have to put up with the,very limited facilities in the resort or pay 20 quid each way for a taxi.
Good skiing
Most accomodation ski in / ski out.
Easy access. Take a Eurostar to 'Borg' and the funicular leaves from the another platform.
All the normal problems of boring high alttitude resorts.
I liked this one a civilized french resort with decent night life and good quality skiing.
Great skiing
Reasonably lively night life
Still feels like a real town
Very long walk ( 1Km ) from some parts of town to the lifts
French resort. Looks traditional but I think most of it has been recently constructed. I liked this one.
Great weather. One of the best sunshine records in the Alps.
Good for beginners
Reasonable range of pistes
Long bus transfer from Turin (4 hours)
Bit low so gets slushy in the afternoon.
Were I went over to the darkside and tried boarding.
Pleasant Austrian resort also one of the first European ski resorts so I guess everyone has to do it at least once.
Civilised ... A "real" town.
Adequate lift system ... Small queues but it breaks down a lot.
Good connection to outside world ... 5 minutes walk from railway station to lifts.
Greater lift capacity than mountain can handle so very crowded slopes.
Almost no runs suitable for 1-3 week skiers
Large 'sort of OK' French resort. Somewhat lacking in character. Sort of Luton with snow. Skiing good (and going up to very high altitude) but while we were there was not so much low down. Green runs mostly very low and slushy or right at the summit.
Good skiing
Good height range so probably always good snow somewhere.
Long 'commute' to the good snow.
Not much for beginners.
A full function town (old town has some character)
Lots of skiing
In general lift queues not too big.
The guest house/restaurant near the 'scary chair' mid station.
Tartifette.
Not enough lift capacity high up. So big queues to the glacier. They are planning to fix this next year.
Slow old lift. No funiculars.
Abysmal run categorization. There are black runs that are a cruise (fetes) and red runs that would kill a typical intermediate (canyon).
Long transfer times. Grenoble airfield is 30 mins away. So why did I sit on a bus for 4 hours from Geneva ????
Bastards at the swimming pool will not let you in with shorts (even brand name Speedo 'made for swimming' shorts !). (even when you paid for it as part of your 'extra expensive' lift pass !!)
Crummy photo of Alpe D'Huze ! (while waiting on a pizza, with a cold)
The real Austrian thing. Lot's of middle aged Germans doing hill walking and cross country and other healthy stuff.
My hotel was some sort of health spa with 6 different saunas and a swimming pool in the basement.
Fortunately the whole mountain was open so I found enough down hill to keep me occupied.
Very short taxi transfer from the airport.
Lot's of middle aged Germans doing hill walking and cross country and other healthy stuff.
If there had not been recent snow only enough down hill for a beginner.
Wow !
A real town.
Easy to get to.
Great spot by the lake.
Skiing pretty good.
For excellent skiing you really have to go to the glacier at Kaprun. This is about 45 mins bus ride away.
Zell across the Zum-See