Ski, Snow, Mountains. Anyone who has ever been skiing in the Alps knows that there is no other activity which has the ability to both give one a great full-body workout, and the relaxing effects of a good session with a great therapist. Some call it the "White Powder Drug". A week of skiing at an Alpine resort will leave you feeling content, relaxed and invigorated. Many ski resorts have lots of additional snow activities, such as walking, hiking, sledging and more, and at some of the better ski resorts you will find many non-snow activities, such as the Apres-ski scene, shopping, sports, spa, entertainment and more.
One of my favorite resorts is Davos in Switzerland, which has one of largest ski areas in Switzerland with some of the best groomed and maintained facilities and slopes of all difficulty levels from beginner to expert. There is a great Ski school and great equipment rental outlets.
On top of that, Davos has one of the most extensive collections non-ski activities I've encountered at a ski resort including plenty of shopping (including department stores), museums, a casino, a vibrant nightlife with bars, restaurants, a cinema, a large spa centre (called Eau-La-La) with swimming pools for all ages, hot pools, childrens pools and even one of the best water slides I've been on. I just returned from several days in Davos. The skiing was fabulous with great weather and powdery snow. The conditions were simply perfect! Too bad I could only stay for 3 days.
Thereafter I continued to Crans-Montana, another one of my favorite resorts, which is in the French-speaking region of Switzerland and has a nice town, with charming shopping, lots of nightlife, and great walks, and is connected to the town of Sierre by a funicular train, connecting you to even more shopping and other facilities.
Crans also has absolutely majestic vistas in it's extensive ski area, especially in the area of the Pleine-Morte glacier at the top of the mountain around 3000m altitude.
The nice thing is that these days there are more options for the kosher skier and traveller, with kosher hotels and apartments. One of the leading providers of Kosher Ski vacations and hotels is Kosher SKI.
The nice people at Kosher SKI are knowledgable about all the kosher skiing options, and they provide excellent service, including where necessary handling travel arrangements, ski passes, equipment rental, and they have a surprising number of kosher ski hotel options throughout the Ski season, as well as kosher self-catered apartments.
There is something special about coming back from a great day of skiing and have a warm meal ready for you, not needing to mess around with sandwiches and instant meals. Also, if Jewish apres-ski is you thing, at the hotel in Crans there really was a great fun crowd, which extended the dinner meals to late hours with lots of laughs and kibitzing, and Shabbos with minyanim was very nice. Contact Kosher SKI for more info.
Anyway both the self-catered and hotel portions of the trip were great. I got back home feeling like a new person, looking forward to my next Kosher ski trip!
