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Christmas with Cross Country Skiing in France or Switzerland (leaving from Paris)

We will be spending Dec 18-22 in Paris, but hope to move to a smaller village for the days around Christmas. Ideally, we would like to stay in an apartment in the mountains with SNOW where we can arrive in time to purchase provisions for Christmas dinner.

We would love to have it be a smaller town, close to Cross Country Skiing, and spend four days skiing, relaxing, doing a little cooking, attending church or mass, and walking around the village listening to French being spoken (unless everything is closed for the holidays).

What we are looking for is an affordable location (not a fancy ski resort), with real people (not a lot of rich tourists, preferably, not that there is anything wrong with that, but we've had more authentic experiences, and prefer them).

Judith

Posted by
21142 posts

After a bit of thought, it came to me. The area along the Glacier Express route leading up to the Furka Tunnel in Switzerland should fit the bill. You want to go as high up as you can, as that early, higher gives a better chance of snow. Usually higher also means Alpine ski resorts and high prices especially during Christmas. This area is pretty easy to get to by train from Paris, has extensive cross country ski trails, no big name alpine resorts around, and mostly small hotels and apartments. The towns are Fuergangen, Bellwald, Muenster Valis, Ulrichen, and Oberwald. Travel there would be TGV to Basel, IC or EC train to Brig, then up the valley on the narrow gauge line that the Glacier Express uses. I saw lots of X-country skiers along the valley in mid January this year.
Edit_ Ok, not much French spoken. It is about 50 km from the language border in the Rhone valley.

Posted by
5837 posts

I have yet to ski either country, but the two candidates for the 2017 Masters World Cup Cross Country race events are Klosters, Switzerland and Le Féclaz, France.

http://www.davos.ch/en/experience/winter/cross-country-skiing/trail-network.html
"TRAIL NETWORK The trail network in Davos Klosters encompasses over 100 km of classic trails and 46 km of skating trails across all difficulty ratings. They all have one thing in common: They are superbly well prepared. Furthermore, in Davos special dog trails can also be found along the Landwasser"

http://www.snowplaza.co.uk/france/savoie-grand-revard/la-feclaz/

The London Region Nordic Ski Club's "British Nordic Week was held for many years in Le Feclaz in the French Savoy Alps. This beautiful village provides access to 100 kilometers of tracks, groomed for both classic and skate techniques." (Cross Country Skier Magazine Feb 2005)

MWC venue tracks are half the difficulty of FIS World Cup tracks and are skiable by citizen skiers, including older skiers into there 80s and 90s of age. "
http://www.xcskiworld.com/mwc-every-master

Posted by
16895 posts

Those sound like good places to start, but Davos/Klosters has a reputation for hosting princes and such.