New Year's skiing in Europe - where best???

New Year's week is high season in every ski resort, so you are not going to get uncrowded. It's also a bit chancy for snow. You can get lots of perfect ski conditions, but you may also be skiing on artifical snow or over rocks.

For reliable snow, you need to go high. Yes, Tignes is a high snow-sure resort. It's also very expensive, and tends to be full of very macho skiers who don't have much patience with beginners. You are paying for a lot more skiing than you will probably actually do.

Same with Val d'Isere. Val Thorens is also high and expensive.

Les Arcs might suit you better. Still big, especially now it's linked with La Plagne, but not so macho (though there is the Flying Kilometer if you want to see how fast you can go). Lots of nice blues and reds back to Arc 1600 and 1800 and Transarc to bring you down to the resort if the lower runs are rocky. La Rossiere in the same area is smaller and friendly, and always seems to have better snow than the surrounding resorts. Ste Foy a little further up the valley is small and has lovely skiing, but I don't know how good the cover is at New Year.

Of course, the Les Arc ski pass covers you for a day in all the neighbouring resorts, so you can try them out.

Personally, for beginner or intermediates, I like Val Cenis. Much smaller and cheaper, but with north facing slopes and snowmaking. I suspect that Puy St Vincent may be similar.

It might also be worth looking at the snow record of Arabba in Italy. It's part of the Stella Ronda, a ski circuit of around 40km, but the ski pass actually covers around 500km of runs, and the ones not on the Stella Ronda are a lot quieter.

Definitely avoid Tigne/Val d'Isere then. Not only do half the skiers there think they are Tomba, the blue runs tend to develop some pretty serious bumps by afternoon.

If it was any other week, I'd say wait till you see how the snow is, and book then. If the snow is good, then somewhere like Chamrousse near Grenoble would be great, lots of easy runs at one side of the resort, gradually getting harder as you move to the other side, finishing with an Olympic downhill run.

I've never skied it, but somewhere like Bonneval sur Arc might suit. It's very high, but not huge and has a good lot of easy/moderate runs, so it's not over run by wannabe racers. Should be affordable as well. Fly to Paris or Turin, get a train to Modane and then get a bus up to Bonneval.

Actually, for Les Arcs, you might want to consider the Youth Hostel in Seez. They do all in (breakfast, packed lunch, gouter and dinner) with lift pass, and they run a bus from their front door to the Funi. It's good craic, good value and just as handy as a lot of the apartments in the resort (generally small and expensive).

http://auberge-seez-les-arcs.com/en/VisiteGuidee.php?fuaj=0

For a beginner, then Arc 1600 or 1800 might be better. 2000 and 1950 both have mostly steep runs back to them. You might also think about Vallaroger (not sure of the spelling), it's one of the small villages on the outskirts of the Les Arcs system.

Or even better, what about staying in Bourg St Maurice? Nice French town, lots of reasonable priced hotels.

I've never stayed in La Plagne, and skiing it always seemed to be just a big mass of similar runs, so I'd say there wasn't much in it. Peisey Nancrois seems to be right between the two systems.

I've just heard that Bonneval sur Arc was voted one of the most beautiful villages in France, so I'm definitely going to ski there this year.

Hey Westendorf in Austria is usually really good, its really near Kitsbuhel and Bixen which is a big plus. I'm off to Flachau this January. Anyone been before? Is there any nightlife?