Hi,

I need to plan a family holiday (coming from the UK) over Christmas that has skiing as a component but is not necessarily the central theme. Family includes a baby and a 14-yr old, so it's a hard crowd to please. I'm looking to be within 1-1.5 hrs of Zurich, in a place that would provide 'winter fun' for the family. I'm hoping to capitalise on the fact that we don't have to be on the slopes, so hopefully accommodations will be more reasonable.

Am looking for suggestions of:

• towns where I might target for accommodations
• best approach for locating accommodations (preferably a holiday flat), eg websites, local tourist offices, etc.
• airports, apart from Zurich, that would be cheaper to fly into and a reasonable to drive to the area

Many thanks for your suggestions.

Jwol

Wow, you are leaving it pretty late!

I would be think that if you want to be within an hour to an hour and a half of Zurich then that would be the closest airport?

My other suggestion would be Innsbruck (4 hours away by train, but does have an airport)( and even a different country). It is a beautiful, quite large ski town, surrounded by resorts, and not only is it aesthetically pleasing, but there are plenty of things to do (it even has a Zoo).

Hiediland would be good for the kids and there's plenty of skiing round here and only about an hour by train from ZH. The town of Bad Ragaz is nice and has some good hotels and a Casino. You're also close to Leichtenstien and can get your false teeth done at the same time (actually there's a really nice museum there)

I would check out Basel to fly. It is much cheaper to fly to than Zurich (Family of 4 flying from Manchester to Basel Boxing day returning 10 days later 200 quid all in taxes inc with Airswiss)

Heidiland a good bet.
Engelberg and Hoch -Ybrig also good. A little further afield Andermatt is very picturesque and you can hire taboggans to drag the kids around.

Generally true but Sleazy Jet now fly to ZH from Luton and I got a pretty cheap fair last month