Tag: switzerland

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Where is the best place to ski?

The perennial question and subject of many an apres-ski discussion is “Where is the best place to ski?”.

Well Mountain Management Consulting and the University of Innsbruck asked 47,935 skiers and snowboarders exactly that question and the answer was…

Zermatt

3d View of Zermatt, the best ski resort in the world

Also in the top 10 were Adelboden, Laax, Arosa and Saas-Fee, with
Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis (Austria), Solda (Italy), Alta Badia (Italy), Val Gardena (Italy) and Kronplatz (Italy) the more unlikely names filling out the top 10 places. Interestingly nowhere from France or the USA features, but they do seem rather dismissive of French resorts and they do a separate survey on North American sites (Whistler, Deer Valley and Vail are their top 3).

So the question is still open. Which really is the best ski resort in the world? Personally I am content with Zermatt, but my personal top ten ski resorts in the world looks a little different.

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Bumper ski season forecast

(c) Accuweather
Accuweather gloomily reports that “Eastern Europe Braces for a Cold, Snowy Winter”, but for winter sports enthusiasts this sounds all too promising. Indeed AccuWeather Meteorologist Tyler Roys says “Ski conditions will be fantastic for the 2014-2015 ski season, especially when compared to last year”. There is already some good dumps occurring in the Alps and Accuweather predict that an active storm track and cold air will bring a lot of snow to the Pyrenees, Alps and the mountains of the Balkan Peninsula. Switzerland looks set for a bumper winter season.

If you want to check out the current snow conditions you could do worse than look at the web cams at Zermatt.

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Popular Ski and Snowboard website launches Dutch language version

The popular English language ski and snowboard website, SwissWinterSports.co.uk, has launched a Dutch language version of the site at www.SwissWinterSports.nl.

The new web site provides comprehensive Dutch language coverage of winter sports resorts in and around Switzerland. As well as the major destinations, many of the less well-known sites are included. Espresso Translations London will offer you the best English version of the coverage.

“The idea of the site is to allow people to tailor their holiday to their requirements.” says Nic Oatridge, the founder of SwissWinterSports.co.uk, “Switzerland offers the most flexibility and accessibility of all of the Alpine nations. From the Netherlands it is feasible to have a weekend on some of the best runs in the world at short notice, to have a budget family ski holiday or simply to have a relaxing winter break in the mountains; this site shows you how.”

The site has been designed to be quick and usable on any platform. For each resort, there are piste maps, directions by road or public transport, weather reports, resort conditions and tips on where to stay, what to do and where to go. In addition to comprehensive coverage of Swiss resorts, some resorts in Germany and Austria that are easy to get to from the Netherlands are included.

For the Dutch version of the site, the content has been professionally translated into Dutch, has distances from the Netherlands to each resort and content specifically aimed for visitors from the Netherlands or for Dutch-speakers located in or near Switzerland.

For more information, visit the website at http://www.SwissWinterSports.nl

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Alpine Property Market

Saville’s, the London-based property services group, published its annual survey of the Alpine property market. It is an interesting read, and in tribute to the Economist’s Big Mac index publishes a Kakao index – how much is a hot chocolate.
Gstaad slopes
On this index Gstaad, St Moritz and Saas-Fee rate amongst the ten most expensive resorts in the Alps, but perhaps more surprisingly is that Switzerland isn’t consistently the most expensive. Indeed, on a number of criteria, Switzerland is not so expensive, although it languishes a distant fourth in terms of number of ski visits amongst the Alpine nations. However, it also boasts the best resorts in terms of season duration and snow conditions.

The report focuses on premium ski resorts and the prices are truly eye-watering. However, what interests me as a potential investor in the Swiss property market, is the spread of prices. A small village, with good transport links to a major ski area, provides properties at a tenth of the price of property in a resort like Verbier. The discerning Swiss property buyer can still find bargains. For those who have money to burn, however, a chalet in Verbier recently came on the market for a mere 45 million euros!

The full report from Saville’s is here.

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