Hello. My boyfriend and I will be traveling to Europe for 10 days between Christmas and New years. After taking travel into account, we have 9 nights. We are excited about visiting the alps and would like to do a couple days of skiing. We are both proficient but beginner skiers, we will also need to rent our equipment. We are looking for nice, long, easy ish runs that are scenic. That being said, we would like to add a city on to the beginning and a different city onto the end of the trip. We don't want the trip to be solely skiing and we also enjoy other winter sports/activities, are big foodies, don't mind a few drinks, love to shop etc etc. We are also hoping to stay somewhere quaint and romantic in one of our destinations.
With the background info out of the way, here are our two potential itinerary ideas but please let us know if we are way off base.
1) Fly to Vienna, spend a couple days there for Christmas, go to Innsbruck for skiing, then continue on to Geneva or Lyon (any preferences?) for NYE. We are debating if this could be a fun roadtrip (We love to roadtrip) with scenery and stops or if it would be wiser to fly and take trains direct. Thoughts on this?
2)Fly to Geneva, spend a couple days there, drive to Courmayeur (or train? suggestions appreciated) and then drive to Lyon and spend the last few days there. We realize that these 3 places are closer together and probably thus easier in terms of traveling around but also means seeing less.
Any thoughts or suggestions? We are open to different cities and different ski destinations. We also don't mind if you know of a quieter village for the skiing portion of the trip, esp if its a bit cheaper or more romantic.
Thanks so much for any input, We really appreciate it!