Les Deux Alpes - Slope

The season runs from late November until late April.

For beginners, the gentle slopes and drag lifts at the bottom work well, but the ski school meets at mid-mountain Les Crêtes, creating queues for the gondola then gridlock on the easy slopes above. The trick is to get past this by going up to the Toura area, where you can hit the runs (and off-piste terrain) down towards La Fee, or head further up to the bottom of the glacier for some decent cruising.

The glacier itself (open for summer skiing) is, although spectacular, barely worth the crush in the underground funicular, unless you're intending to do the fabled runs from the top down to La Grave.

There are 225km (141 miles) of piste here, so lots to ski, and there's an impressive amount of off-piste skiing – although it's sometimes hard to find. Less proficient skiers face another challenge at the end of the day, with the only way down to the village (aside from a couple of scrappy blacks) a busy, snaking path. There is also a big terrain park to enjoy.

La Grave, Alpe d'Huez (twice weekly bus), Serre Chevalier and the 400km (250 miles) of the Milky Way lift pass – which extends from Montgenèvre in France to the 2006 Winter Olympic resorts of Sestriere and Sauze d'Oulx over the border in Italy – are all included on the same lift pass.