Swiss swish

SWITZERLAND is basically a large valley with a few lakes in the middle and a bundle of mountains at one end.

Not much good if you like fresh seafood, but quite handy for the ski and snowboard aficionado.

Throw in a bundle of cuckoo clocks, enough chocolate to keep Willy Wonka going for life, and a few dinky castles and you have a country that is, in a word, quaint.

Here's our verdict on which Swiss ski resorts are worth sloping off to...

VILLARS

A LITTLE red train takes you to Villars and sweet chalets dot the mountainside at around 1,300m, with the odd hotel too. These give way to gently-wooded slopes which in turn give way to the open pistes of the main resort, rising to 2110m.

As with most resorts in the Alpes Vaudoises area, the lifts vary from new to a tad old and slow, although given the easy-going and enjoyable nature of the skiing, this never seems to matter much.

Villars is also tenuously linked to the glacier at Les Diablerets in a sort of second-cousin-once-removed kind of way. This involves taking a monumentally slow chair lift from Villars to the Diablerets ski area (quaint again), skiing down to Les Diablerets at 1200mm, skiing up to Isenau and down to Col du Pillon, where you can catch a huge cable car.

Our guide, a super-fit speed demon of about 13 years old, reckoned on two hours there and two back. If you've breathed anything but fresh Swiss mountain air in the last 10 years, give it a whole day.

Villars is also the first place I've come across with a speed trap. This is great fun: sling yourself down a little runway and watch the digital readout at the end. I made 62kph, which is pretty pathetic.

The resort itself is vibrant and fun, with The Gringo Bar worth a visit for those who like to party harder than they ski. Don't try the chilli vodka.

VERDICT: Quaint, with skiing and shops to match. A wide variety of runs will suit everyone but the very advanced.

LEYSIN

LEYSIN can be skied on the same pass as Villars and offers substantially less skiing and slightly more imposing scenery.

The skiing is very much oriented towards beginners and intermediates, although bizzarely enough there is a "Flying K". Flying Ks are very steep runs populated by madmen with long skis trying to break the sound barrier. Thankfully, this doesn't happen all the time.

There is also the ubiquitous board park, for anyone in need of a little "big air", with a few half pipes and rails. The board park is at the bottom of the Flying K. Very strange: natural selection perhaps.

There's a magnificent mountaintop restaurant with views to the Dents du Midi and Mont Blanc and an eccentric alpine-horn playing chef from Austria.

So... no clocks, but a bit cuckoo.

VERDICT: Recommended if you like a quiet, easy-going resort and don't need black runs.

ROUGEMONT

A VERY pretty village, with the surrounding mountains populated by the apparently ubiquitous bouqtin, some sort of edible mountain goat.

A few of the unmarked runs here look like they are more suited to those mountain goats than skiers. However, the marked runs are all fairly pleasant - particularly the red run back to the base station.

This winds rather attractively through the mountain scenery.

The base lifts do not run from the resort centre but a two minute bus ride will get you there.

VERDICT: A pretty village - and enough skiing to keep most people happy. Runs out of snow towards the end of the season.

CHATEAU-D'OEX

CHATEAU-D'OEX is very pretty in a sort of Swiss 19th Century Mountain Quaint Style. It's all so pleasant, in fact, you may find drinking hot chocolate and eating croissants all morning is rather more rewarding than pounding up and down a mountain.

The skiing here is slightly limited, although, as with Rougemont, a 15-minute bus ride down the road will take you Gstaad.

Just remember to pack your mink coat and your autograph book, darlings.

VERDICT: Limited skiing, but one of the more charming places to stay in the area.

LES DIABLERETS: GLACIER 3000

NAMED after a couple of rocks used by the Devil for 10-pin bowling, this resort tops out at a whopping 3300m and is reached by two huge cable cars. The runs here vary from easy-go-lucky stuff to guide-only descents under the cable cars and would suit skiers of all abilities. The lifts are all modern and fast, which makes a change.

There are some very rewarding long red runs towards the fast chairlift at Oldenegg with the option of taking in some off-piste down the sides of the cols.

Somewhere in this resort there is a glacier (always well camouflaged in winter and a tad tricky to see) which, in combination with the altitude, means snow availability is not a problem.

This is not a cuckoo clock sort of ski area and neither can you really stay there: the closest resorts are Les Diablarets (a short bus ride away) or Gstaad (a short chauffeur-driven Merc ride away).

VERDICT: Fantastic mountain-top restaurant, with skiing slanted towards the intermediate and advanced skier. Some runs very slanted.

WHAT'S THE DEAL?

GETTING AROUND

TRANSFER from Geneva: Swiss trains do not work like clockwork all the time. This is very reassuring from the comfort of your own home, not so funny if you're trying to catch a plane.

Transfers from Geneva will take three to four hours and normally need two changes.

LIFT PASSES

A PASS for Alpes Vaudoises, the whole area, and including all the above resorts, costs roughly 200 Swiss francs (pounds 95) for five days.

Passes for the individual resorts are about 10 per cent cheaper.

You can also stay in Villars at the three-star Hotel Sunstar Elite with prices from pounds 376 including scheduled return flights from Heathrow, train transfers and halfboard for three nights. Extra night from pounds 60.

Crystal Ski offers short-stay ski holidays and three nights in Les Diablerets in the three-star Hotel Les Sources, including scheduled return flights from Heathrow, train transfers and half-board from pounds 404. An extra night costs pounds 58.

You can also stay in Leysin in the four-star Hotel Classic and prices are from pounds 395 including scheduled return flights from Heathrow, train transfers and half board for three nights. Extra night pounds 51.

DETAILS: 0870 888 0022.

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